


No One Else But You Will Do

by notsodarling



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes POV, Communication, Government Conspiracy, Handwavy Alien Science, M/M, Michael Guerin POV, Post-Season/Series 01, Some Angst with a Happy Ending, Temporary Amnesia, Two Idiots Working Out Their Issues, alternating povs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling
Summary: Hoping to continue their conversation from the night before, Alex waits at the junkyard, but doesn't anticipate Michael pushing him away. And what he really doesn't expect is to find out that between Caulfield, Noah, and Max's death, something has happened where Michael no longer recognizes who he is.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin (mentioned), Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 40
Kudos: 161





	1. Parts 1 & 2

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been a long time coming - it is, like most things I write, the result of a prompt [nielrian](https://nielrian.tumblr.com/) put in my head months ago that would not leave me alone. My normal fic length is less then 6K, and this sucker is pushing six times that.
> 
> This is, first and foremost, a Malex fic. But if you've read anything else I've done, I love introspection. I love getting in the characters heads and just writing from there. As this is a post-Season 1 fic, it does address the love triangle (if you've read my other works, you are familiar with how I prefer to handle it), deals with lots of handwavey science, and more characters than I ever should have included. [Hunter is shamelessly borrowed from Meagn because her fancasts are top notch goodness and I love everything she writes.](https://irolltwenties.tumblr.com/post/184944347747/manes-men-fancast-harlan-manes-ii-alex) And as always, Jesse Manes is a terrible person and needs to be fired into the sun.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for the hand-holding, the messages and comments of encouragement, and for keeping me from completely abandoning this thing months ago. <3
> 
> Title from "The Truth" by James Blunt

**PART ONE**

**(Alex's POV)**

Alex waits.

He sits on one of the lawn chairs, pulled up onto the wooden platform Michael uses as a front stoop in front of the Airstream, and waits. They hadn’t agreed on a when, there hadn’t been time the night before, Michael running out of the Airstream with a rushed _come back tomorrow, we’ll talk then_.

Alex had stood in the doorway for a moment, processing before turning around, his gaze falling to the bloodstained shirt and jacket Michael had shed - the unanswered question of what happened still lingering in the air.

He’s already fielded a frantic phone call from Liz this morning - her voice distraught as she spoke of Max and putting him in one of the pods like they had with Isobel all those months ago, before turning into something indecipherable about Rosa and resurrection. He’d been less surprised to hear from Kyle, but it had been what Kyle had told him - that his father had attempted to murder Kyle in the Project Shepherd bunker - that had caught Alex off guard. He’d known they’d have to take precautions after Caulfield, that his father would no doubt be angry at the destruction of that particular little pet project, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.

There's both a kind of lightness in knowing his father is truly incapacitated at the moment dueling with the hard truth of just how monsterous Jesse Manes can be. Alex has always accepted his father's hatred, has known it almost his entire life. But it becomes something else when the targets are other people, particularly the people Alex cares about most in the world.

Finally, just as Alex is considering leaving, because he can’t wait around all day, the familiar Chevy truck barrels into the junkyard, spitting gravel as it grinds to a halt next to his own SUV. He watches, unmoving, as Michael grabs his hat, and slips out of the cab, slamming the driver side door behind him. His boots are caked in mud, and he looks ready to pass out, which isn’t much of an improvement from last night.

Especially if Liz’s near incoherent babbling was to be believed, then Michael had not only found and lost his mother in the past 24 hours, but also Max Evans.

“Alex,” Michael says, stopping dead in his tracks at the foot of the wooden board, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

“You ran out - I wanted to see - I wanted to make sure you-” Alex stops himself. He knows the answer to his own question.

He drops his gaze, his eyes falling to where Michael has his cowboy hat clutched in his hand - his _left hand_. The hand that last night, Alex knows still held the scars and the reminder of that afternoon in the shed ten years ago. A reminder of what loving him had cost Michael.

“Max healed it.”

It's been ten years, Alex thinks to himself. Ten years of watching Michael learn to adjust his movements because of the limitations of his left hand. Either Max had never offered or Michael had never wanted him to, and Alex doesn't know which option is worse. It had been something on his mind that day they'd talked in the junkyard, and more so even the night before.

For so many years, talking about Michael's hand meant they'd have to talk about how Alex had believed his own choice to bring Michael to the shed that day had led to Michael not going to college, to staying in Roswell, to not being able to have the future he'd be working toward. Learning the truth about Rosa had almost been a _relief_ , that it hadn't all been his fault in destroying Michael's life. 

But why had Michael kept the broken bones, learned to live with them, if Max could have just undone the damage? Even back then, Alex hadn't visited often enough, he probably would have assumed it had just healed, aided by his own preference to not talk about it. Why had he chosen to live with the reminder of something so terrible, so horrific, for the past decade? Something wasn't making sense, wasn't adding up-

“Why now?”

Michael shrugs, shifting his hat into his other hand, and Alex sees out of the corner of his eye as Michael flexes the fingers, as if the mention has caused some sort of phantom pain.

Something Alex is all too familiar with.

“Maybe I just got tired of the reminder.”

Alex flinches at the jab, at the implications that Michael had kept the scars _for Alex_. Is this how it's always going to be with them? Because after that day in the junkyard, Alex had started to believe that maybe they could start over. They could give themselves a kind of new beginning, a chance to learn and know about each other in a way they'd never been afforded the chance to before. But maybe it's too late now, maybe there's too much that happened after - Caulfield, Michael's mother, Noah, Rosa, and now Max Evans. 

But Alex also knows it's a lie, can't help but stare back at Michael the same way he had at Caulfield with the alarm blaring, daring him to do his worst, because it wouldn't matter - Alex wasn't going anywhere.

"Fuck," Michael sighs. "I didn't - he just - it wasn't something I asked for."

That's not an answer that makes this any better, the idea that Max may have healed the injury without being asked - and if so, what even gave Max Evans the right to do that? Alex tries not to dwell too much on his earlier phone call with Liz, reminding himself that it sounded like Max Evans had sacrificed himself to bring Rosa Ortecho back to the land of the living. Something else they're now going to have to deal with the consequences of.

But it's the truth.

It's so clear, just from looking at Michael, that he's dead on his feet. Alex tries quickly to piece together the events of the past twenty-four hours, and even if it had just been the events of Caulfield they were dealing with, that would be more than enough to emotionally drain someone. But Alex knows Michael is dealing with much, much more than that.

This time, Alex isn't that scared boy in the shed, frozen and unable to do anything to fight back. Since returning to Roswell, he's spent months working to move past his own demons, to heal the emotional scars left behind from a lifetime of living with his father. It's forced him to begin to examine his own behavior, the way he's possibly treated Michael over the past decade. He'd said it in the junkyard that day - he was tired of walking away - and he'd meant it. Now though, now he has to back his words up. Now he has to show Michael he means them.

"Just go, Alex."

It feels like a change, a shift in this _thing_ between them. Michael’s never asked him to leave before, Alex has never given him the chance, always leaving first, removing himself before Michael gets hurt again. But if the last several months have taught him anything, it’s that while he may have thought he was protecting Michael, his leaving had ended up hurting him more than Alex had realized at the time.

But it doesn't change the promise Alex made that day in the junkyard, Kyle's words about _a conversation not a war_ ringing in his head, and Alex wanting to make Michael understand he's here, he's going to fight for them. Trying to express the importance of needing more than this unexplainable cosmic connection between them - it's a foundation, a base that they can build on. And Alex does want it, he's always only ever wanted Michael since they were seventeen years old, and he hopes, desperately, that his words the night before, of telling Michael he was tired of fighting his father's battles and not his own, made it clear enough. 

Alex doesn’t move as Michael steps around him, doesn’t move as he hears the Airstream door slam shut behind him. He takes a moment to collect himself before making his way back to his SUV, sliding into the driver’s seat and gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline.

\----

**PART TWO**

**(Alex's POV)**

It’s late by the time Alex gets to Max Evans’ house, a ranch located on a ridge overlooking the town of Roswell. Liz’s Toyota is parked there, along with a Jeep that Alex recognizes as the same one Max Evans has held onto since high school out of some sort of nostalgia, and a silver Infiniti he doesn’t recognize. Just as he’s pushing open the door to get out, Kyle’s black BMW pulls up alongside him, a welcoming sight. 

Glancing over at the house, there’s a tarp pulled taut over what Alex assumed used to be doors out to the fire pit, though the focused damage doesn’t look like it was caused by the storm that swept through the night before. Shattered glass, and remains of the wooden frame have been swept off to the side, out of the way.

“I wonder what it’s like to live in an actual quiet small town,” Kyle jokes as they walk up to the house, and Alex can’t help but smile as Kyle pushes open the door and heads inside.

“You don’t miss quiet, just admit it.”

“What I’d like,” Kyle starts, smirking, "is to not have to buy a bulletproof vest because someone is trying to kill me.”

It's a joke. Alex _knows_ it's a joke. But he can't help feeling responsible for it. This is his father they're talking about. He wasn't supposed to be in Roswell, and Alex should have planned better, should have known his father wouldn't listen.

Hearing Liz _say_ Rosa is alive, and seeing her sitting on the countertop in Max’s kitchen are two very different things, and both him and Kyle stop inside the door, neither of them able to look away. Rosa looks exactly like Alex remembers her at nineteen, and if she’d been kept in a pod for the past ten years, it also means she hasn’t aged.

“Rosa,” Kyle says, finding his voice first. Alex glances over at him, and sees the wonder written on his face, watches Kyle’s eyes move up and down, a doctor cataloguing a patient.

“In the flesh, Valenti.”

Alex goes to move, to follow Kyle further into the house, his eyes drifting downward toward the floor when he sees it - remnants of blood dried into the grout of the tile that lines Max Evans’ living room. His mind immediately goes to the night before, to Michael and a blood soaked t-shirt, of dried blood caked onto Michael’s skin, and the insistence, _it’s not my blood_ , like it didn’t matter, it wasn’t important. He thinks of the lie, and the proof of what really happened under the soles of his boots, and Alex has to take a deep breath and remind himself not to get angry.

Isobel notices, crossing the room, staying in his line of sight until she’s standing next to him, reaching out, and gently placing her hand on his arm.

“It’s Michael’s but he's fine. Max healed him.”

“I - I know. I saw him.”

If Isobel reacts, he doesn’t see it, his gaze never leaving the floor. But he feels her remove her hand from his arm, and listens as she walks back across the room. 

Alex has been in war zones, he's watched innocents as well as his fellow soldiers bleed out in the middle of the desert. He's always been able to keep himself separate, has learned how to not let it affect him and his situational awareness - because in a war zone, that could mean death. And Alex had refused to die in a war that he'd never wanted to be part of in the first place.

But there's something different about seeing and knowing it's Michael's blood on the floor. And not for the first time, Alex wonders if this is just a taste of what Michael must have felt like hearing that Alex's unit had been attacked, that he'd been injured, that it was serious enough he was being sent back to Roswell.

“Where’s Maria?”

Rosa’s question pulls Alex out of his thoughts, and he shifts to glance around the room finally, catching Liz’s gaze first. Her eyes are red-rimmed, leftover from finding Max, no doubt. Alex thinks of Michael, of Caulfield, and understands.

“Maria doesn’t know,” Liz answers, slowly turning toward her sister.

“You said the shooting happened in June!”

Liz flinches at Rosa’s raised voice, and Alex braces his hands on the back of the sofa. He should sit down - Caulfield had put a ton of strain on his leg, but he stays where he is instead.

“It was. But there’s hasn’t-” Liz stops herself with a frustrated groan. “Maria’s got enough to deal with - with the bar, and her mom-”

“What’s wrong with Mimi?”

It’s then that Alex realizes for all that Rosa has been told, about her own death, her resurrection, everything that’s happened in the years since, somehow Liz left out the memory issues that have been plaguing Mimi for almost as long.

“It’s some kind of dementia. She comes and goes, like sometimes she’s lucid and knows who people are, or where she is. And other times - she kept referring to Liz as you, Rosa.” 

Rosa’s gaze snaps over toward Alex, and he braces himself for her reaction, because she’s still nineteen, she’s still that angry teenager he knew long ago. While the rest of them lived on, moved on, and have spent the last ten years changing out of the kids they used to be, she’s exactly the same.

“Dementia.” Rosa speaks slowly, like she needs to process it, like she doesn’t believe what he’s just told her. “How long?”

“Maybe about five or six years ago? At least, that’s when Maria started mentioning it to me.” There are letters and emails between them, a correspondence that never stopped no matter what state or country Alex was stationed in, he’d always made time for Maria. It had been Liz who up and dropped off the face of the Earth, severing ties with everyone in Roswell except her dad. 

“Five or six - when did you say Jim died?” Rosa asks, shifting her gaze back to Liz. 

“Dad died in 2014,” Kyle replied before Liz gets the chance.

“And the cabin?”

“Jim left it to me,” Alex says, finding his voice and speaking up.

Rosa nods, but doesn’t say anything else right away. She pushes off the counter where she’s been sitting and hops up instead onto the armrest of the sofa, so now she’s towering next to Liz.

“So you found the bunker?”

Kyle scoffs. “Which one?”

“Do I even want to know why there’s more than one?” Liz asks immediately, shifting her gaze between the three of them. "Michael's was enough for me."

Rosa laughs. "Guerin's got a bunker too?"

"At the junkyard. Some old fallout shelter, he said."

There's a look on Rosa's face, at hearing Liz's answer to the question, something Alex can't decipher. He'd once been better at reading Rosa, but it's been ten years, and the ability has faded with the decade. 

"What the hell happened last night?" Alex asks, now that there's a lull in the conversation, gesturing in the direction of the tarp, and the blood stained tile. "I thought Noah had been taken care of?"

"Max killed Noah," Liz says, her voice quiet like she's on the verge of breaking at the mention of Max and whatever happened last night.

Alex pinches the bridge of his nose, because _great_. Not exactly what he'd been planning to hear - now there's most likely a dead body to deal with and cover story to send out.

"Where's his body?"

“Michael and I moved it,” Isobel replies from her perch at the kitchen counter. “We needed it to be somewhere away from the caves, away from the pods. Let everything think he was just hit by lightning-”

"Where _is_ Guerin?" Kyle interrupts, glancing around the room.

"I saw him this morning at the junkyard," Alex replies, trying not to think too hard of their run-in this morning. He can't get the look on Michael's face out of his head, like he'd been both surprised to see Alex there, waiting, and annoyed that Alex had the gall to come back at all.

But if Michael is getting some much needed sleep after the events of Caulfield and dealing with Noah, then the smarter thing to do is let him be. In the meantime, they've got a prominent lawyer in the community dead, as well as a member of the local Sheriff's department - they've gotta act quickly to set up cover stories.

“Isobel, do you think you can play the concerned wife and call the sheriff’s department to report Noah is missing?”

For a moment, the room goes quiet, like Alex has asked a _weird_ question, and he shakes his head that no one else has thought this far ahead.

“Like he didn’t come home last night?”

Alex nods. “We need to create a reason for them to start looking for the body.” 

“But doesn’t that make me look like a suspect?”

“It could,” Alex replies. “But if it looks like he was just hit by lightning, then it won’t matter anyway.”

"What about Max?" Liz asks, and her voice is quiet, quieter than Alex has heard recently. It reminds him more of her back in high school, after her mom left and she started to withdraw into herself a bit, not quite the loud, spunky best friend he was always so used to.

Max isn't quite as easy, but maybe a missing persons case would keep the focus elsewhere for the time being. Alex gets an idea, thinking about Jenna Cameron, and pulls his cell phone out of the pocket of his jeans before heading back out the front door.

"Hello?"

"Jenna? It's Alex."

"Oh, hey. I wasn't expecting to hear from you after-"

"Something happened and I need your help."

There's silence on the other end for a moment, and Alex pulls the phone back, wondering if the call dropped.

"Sorry, Max didn't tell you? I'm leaving town."

_What?_

Jenna takes his silence as an invitation to continue. "Charlie got transferred to a facility in Ohio."

"So you're leaving to-"

"Yeah," she says, cutting him off.

Alex thinks quickly, but that's also what he's good at. He may have hated joining the Air Force, he may have hated most aspects of it, but forcing him to learn to be quick on his feet is a skill he's developed over the past ten years that has saved his life more than once. But her leaving town might be more helpful now.

"Are you still in town?" 

"For a couple days," she affirms, and Alex gives her a time to meet him at the Project Shepherd bunker. They're going to have to act fast in regards to everything to make sure none of them are looked at as suspects.

Back inside, Alex returns to a stand off between Rosa and Isobel, Liz standing between them, her hands up like she needs to make sure they stay apart. It's not exactly surprising given according to what he's been told by Michael and Kyle, Isobel's face was the last thing Rosa saw. Even if it wasn't _really_ Isobel.

"What happened?"

"Did you know, Alex? Did you _know_ what they did? Who they _blamed_?"

Shit.

He knew they'd all have to address this eventually, but it was easier to avoid it when Liz was also not talking about it. He'd learned from Kyle, of course, about the cover-up regarding Rosa's death, and Michael had later confirmed it during their talk at the junkyard. He'd still been processing it himself, but had long ago decided that he was okay forgiving them, much like Liz had. Three seventeen-year old kids with no one to turn to, three kids who knew they weren't human just trying to survive - he understood that.

It didn’t excuse the ten years worth of hatred and bigotry that had been directed at the Ortecho’s, but Alex had tried to look at the situation from every other angle, and had come up short. It was a no-win situation they’d been put in.

"Yes."

There's no denying it either.

"You're telling me people went after _papi_ , Liz. Vandalized _our home_ , and we're just gonna _forgive them_ for putting that target on us? For making me into the bad guy? I didn't do anything wrong."

Alex watches Liz turn towards Isobel, like she's made a decision. "Maybe you should-"

"Fine!" Isobel moves around the Ortecho sisters, beelining for the door. "But we are sorry, Rosa. For everything."

There's an uncomfortable silence in the room, and Alex knows Rosa is going to demand more. Eventually she’s going to want to know why Liz forgave Max, and why he forgave Michael.


	2. Parts 3 & 4

**PART THREE**

**(Michael's POV)**

Michael wakes up feeling like there’s a whole percussion section going off in his head, and fumbles around with his eyes closed, trying to find the bottle of acetone he knows is on the counter behind him. There’s a small voice inside telling him he should see what time it is, but with the way his head feels, he really doesn’t care to find out. His right hand finds the bottle of nail polish remover, and immediately downs half of it in one go before finally feeling good enough to open his eyes.

Everything feels _off_ , even though looking around, nothing appears out of place.

There’s a missed call and text from Liz on his cell phone, and he already knows what it’s about. They hadn’t discussed in detail how to proceed about Max, but both of them had agreed starting as soon as possible on the research toward figuring out how to revive him was better - even if he was now safely in stasis inside his pod.

It’s easier to focus on trying to bring Max back. Gives him something to focus on rather than his own shit.

Caulfield.

It’s then he realizes the banging hadn’t _just_ been in his head - someone was knocking on the door of the Airstream. _Loudly_.

Slipping the nearest pair of jeans on, Michael pushes open the door to find Liz standing on the wooden platform, looking annoyed.

“Michael! You were supposed to meet me at Max’s. What happened?”

“Overslept."

Liz nods, taking a step back.

Michael grabs a clean shirt off the chair next to the door, and slips it over his head before sitting down on the steps of the Airstream, watching as Liz paces back and forth in front of him.

“Max is dead, Liz. He’s in the pod. We don’t have to rush-”

He stops when Liz turns to glare at him.

“He knew! He knew how much I missed her, what losing her meant to me, what getting her back would mean to me. And I’m so _angry_ at him for thinking he had to sacrifice himself like this.” She pauses, staring up at the sky, letting loose a string of curses in Spanish before continuing. 

"He made his choice. He decided to sacrifice himself." Michael shakes his head, annoyed. Pissed off. "Without a second thought to anyone else."

Liz recoils a bit, staring back at him. "No. No, Michael. He did this _for me_."

"And now he's dead!"

He feels bad in the moment, raising his voice to Liz. But what part of Max made a stupid _self-sacrificing decision_ is she not understanding?

“We’re going to bring him back, Michael. I'm going to find a way to do it.”

Michael has no doubt in his mind that Liz Ortecho would find a way to change the planetary alignments for the people she loved most in the world.

Even though besides Max and Isobel, Michael isn’t sure he’ll ever truly be able to understand what it’s like to love someone that much.

The thought passes through his mind easy enough, but leaves a sour aftertaste, as though it’s _wrong_ somehow. Though Michael knows it’s true, he’s been alone his entire life. Even if he has Max and Isobel, they’d sooner choose each other over him. Never, in his entire life, has he been chosen first by _anyone_ , and he doesn’t think he ever will be. Who would choose him, anyway?

Michael lets out a deep breath, trying to will away the headache. It’s not like the chaos, the constant noise that rumbles through his mind, that keeps him constantly in motion, always moving, always thinking - it’s something else. He can’t quite put his finger on the feeling. Yesterday he’d gone to the Wild Pony, had picked up a guitar for the first time in ten years, and played. Had allowed himself to momentarily get lost in the feeling of the strings beneath his fingers, the sound of the chords rolling through him. It had felt like, for the first time in a decade, his head was _calm_.

Quiet for a moment before he’d felt Max through the connection left over from healing him after Noah’s attack.

Kissing Maria had been nice, especially when all Michael wanted at the moment was something _normal_. His whole life, he'd been on his guard, all too aware of what one slip-up might do toward exposing the three of them. He'd lived in fear that one day, no matter how hard he tried, he'd still end up on some table, dissected as an experiment - because humanity had never shown that it would care about how different he was from them in a way to be celebrated. Only that he was different, and that difference was meant to be studied.

It was just _easier_ not to get attached to humans.

He doesn’t quite understand Liz’s absolute devotion to Max, and he has certainly never understood what it was about Liz Ortecho that made Max seem to lose rational thought. Isobel had asked him once, in some desperate attempt to get him to relate to Max saving Liz that night at the Crashdown, _is there really no one in this world you wouldn’t risk everything for?_

Michael thinks of the half completed console to the seventy year old spaceship in the bunker, how close it is to being completed, and maybe _maybe_ he’ll finally have a real shot at finally getting off this planet with it’s people who have never done anything for him since he came out of the pod twenty years ago.

People on this planet who kept his only family, who kept _his mother_ , locked up in a holding cell as a prisoner for seventy years.

“I finished moving my lab to Max’s this morning, and Alex is still working on setting up the new identity for Rosa-”

Michael frowns, because _who_ _the hell is Alex_? Certainly Liz isn’t naive enough to bring a stranger into their fold. Not after what they'd told her about Caulfield-

“Alex?”

“-because I still think it’s best for her to stay there until we figure out-”

Michael tries again. “Who’s Alex?”

“-what the best cover story is so I don’t have to worry about her,” Liz continues, ignoring Michael’s questions, frustrating him. "Even though she keep whining about wanting to see dad and Maria-"

“Liz!”

She pauses, slightly taken aback by the rise in his voice.

“Who’s Alex?”

Liz glares at him, like he's just asked a really stupid question.

"Alex. Manes."

Michael just shakes his head. _Manes_ is a familiar name, generations of company men who have dedicated their lives to hunting and destroying the only family Michael had. He recalls some heated conversations and arguments with Kyle Valenti about government conspiracies, but that’s the extent of it. And to bring a Manes into their fold? For a Manes to know about him, about Max and Isobel? How soon before they get locked up in a cell, or worse, experimented on?

“The Manes family responsible for-”

“I know, Michael. But Alex isn’t - that’s not Alex. You know that's not Alex.”

There’s a firmness to her voice, one he doesn’t quite understand because he has _no idea who she’s talking about_.

“You really don’t remember? I thought-”

“Thought what?” He asks, when she cuts herself off, studying him, a curiosity written on her face like there’s something she’s not saying.

“You knew each other,” Liz replies, sounding as confused as Michael feels. “From high school?”

“If I knew him, would I be asking?”

“Are you sure you’re okay,” she questions, looking him up and down, as if she doesn’t believe that he doesn’t know who Alex Manes is.

“I will be when this conversation is over.”

“Fine.” Liz gestures toward the junkyard where her car and his truck are parked. “Who’s driving?”

\----

**PART FOUR**

**(Alex's POV)**

There’s a familiar red Chevy truck parked in front of the cabin when Alex pulls up, a truck he knows well. Maria is sitting on the front porch, bundled in a puffy black jacket, and a pale pink beanie pulled down over her hair to ward off the chill of the winter air. 

“Hey,” he calls out as he slides out of the SUV, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and slamming the door shut. “What brings you out here so late?”

It’s then, as he gets closer, that he notices the uncomfortable look in her eyes, the way she’s holding herself, like she’s not quite sure how to act around him. There’s been some awkwardness between them since he found out about Texas, but Alex likes to think they’re starting to move past it. He still wishes he hadn't skipped out on attending the gala, especially after hearing about what happened to her.

“Come on,” he continues, walking up the stairs past her, and unlocking the front door. Inside, Buffy perks up from her spot on the couch, jumping off, and trodding over toward him, clearly ready to head out and in need of a break. He holds the door open long enough for her to slip past, and waits as Maria walks by, pulling the hat off her head as she goes.

It’s not the first time she’s been to the cabin, and he’s not a fan of the general uneasiness in her posture, but he waits it out - whatever she came to talk about is clearly weighing on her mind, and he knows it’s better not to force it out of her. She’ll tell him, it’s why she’s here. He lets her linger in the living room, and heads into the kitchen to turn on the hot water for tea - it’ll be good for both of them to have something warm to drink.

Alex drops his backpack in the doorway to the bedroom, he’s not getting any more work done tonight with Maria here anyway, and turns back toward the living room. She’s settled down on the sofa, her jacket hanging on the hook next to the front door, so at least she’s settling in and getting comfortable - it’s a start.

The cabin itself is still very much a hunting cabin, but in the months since moving in, Alex has made improvements little by little. He’s upgraded the generator, since the old one had sounded like it was on its last legs, and Alex wouldn’t have been surprised if it was the same one from when he was a kid. He couldn’t bear to replace the front door, but now it’s got updated weather stripping to prevent drafts during the winter months. And he’s had the windows in the bedroom replaced for similar reasons, as well as new fixtures in the bathroom due to age, not to mention the addition of hold bars in the shower for support. The one thing he still hasn’t figured out what to do with is the bunker below the cabin, so for now the coffee table in the middle of the table doesn’t move, and Alex deals with the awkward wood flooring, covering it with a couple throw rugs in the meantime.

When the water is hot enough, Alex grabs two mugs from the cabinet, and pours hot water into both of them, dropping chamomile tea bags in before heading into the living room. He places both mugs on the coffee table, pushing one toward Maria, and goes to open the front door to let Buffy in. She saunters back in, pausing for a moment seeing Maria on the couch she’d previously been occupying before setting down on the floor near her feet. Alex smiles at the way Buffy isn’t fazed by Maria’s presence, and falls into the chair next to the couch.

“This would be so much easier if you hated me,” Maria begins finally.

“I could never-”

“Don’t say that,” she snaps, interrupting him. Alex closes his mouth, leans back in his chair, mug in hand, and waits. He watches as she takes a deep shuddering breath, and swats at her eyes, like she’s pushing back tears, and Alex wants nothing more than to just envelope her in a hug and tell her it’s going to be all right, whatever is going on.

“I was angry at you, after Texas, after we talked. I was so mad at you,” she starts, still not looking at him, eyes focused on a spot on the wall. “Ten years, you _never_ said who it was.” She turns to look at him. “Ten years, Alex.”

“I know.”

“And then,” she pauses, letting out a wet laugh, and shaking her head. “And then I tried. I pushed him away, because I knew how he made you feel. That _hopefulness_ . It was all I could think about. But I still - _fuck_ \- I still liked him. I was _saying_ he was riffraff, and yet-”

“Maria,” Alex starts, because he gets it. He wishes he didn’t but he does. Feelings aren't logical, no matter how much we try and convince ourselves they need to be.

Alex was himself trying to remember that.

“He kept telling me that it was over between you - and I don’t even know what _it_ was, because you never told me. And it made me so angry that you didn’t tell me. We’re supposed to be _best friends_ , Alex. I know I’ve been preoccupied with Mimi and the bar and back then with Rosa-”

“It’s not your fault.” He interrupts her, because he refuses to let her think she’s done something wrong in focusing her attention on Mimi, and on the bar. He’s tried as much as he can, over the past decade, and especially since coming back to Roswell, to make sure that he’s been there to support her. And there have been times it feels like she’s shut him out, been afraid to open up to him as well - but he knows she hates feeling like a burden.

It's a feeling he can relate to.

After all, it’s why he had to end up being the one to pull Liz away from her research, to remind her about what was going on with Maria, and how Maria would never ask for the help. He knew Maria put on the brave face, he was all too familiar with it.

“It was nice,” she continues, reaching forward for the tea, holding the mug between her hands for a moment before bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. “For once, to feel _wanted_ like that.”

He lets the silence fall between them. Lets Maria take another sip of her tea, watching as Buffy rolls on the floor, wakes up, twirls in a circle before getting herself comfortable again at Maria’s feet. Alex lets his mind drift, wondering if there’s any way to _fix_ what’s been broken between them. He wonders, if someone else who wasn’t him, who didn’t love Maria the way he did, would be angrier at her for what she’s feeling.

“I joined the Air Force because I felt weak.”

He can tell in the way Maria turns her head, the look in her eyes, she was not expecting the shift in the conversation.

“I thought your dad-”

Alex nods. “He did. But I also wanted to go. I was tired of things happening to me, of not being able to stop them, I wanted to be able to fight back." 

It’s not the full truth, but it’s most of it. He’s never spoken about the shed, about his father, about Michael’s hand, to anyone. It’s only partly his story to tell, and one that he and Michael have barely been able to discuss with each other. He knows Maria and Liz had picked up bits and pieces about how bad it was at home for him as a kid, that they didn’t say anything because they knew he’d deny it anyway.

“You’re not weak.” When Alex looks over, there’s a small smile on Maria’s face. Her eyes are still red rimmed from holding back tears, but she’s not crying anymore. “Even when we were kids, you’ve never - no, that’s not you.”

“It didn’t feel that way. Sometimes it still doesn’t.”

“Alex-”

“I wish things had been different,” he interrupts, putting his mug down on the coffee table. ‘I wish a lot of things had been different. For all of us.”

Maria nods, slowly, glancing over at him before looking away again.

“Guerin came by the Pony the other morning. I’ve been keeping my distance, I’d been trying to ignore everything I was feeling, trying to remember how he made _you_ feel. But after what happened at the gala, and he was just there, making sure I was okay. And then he showed up the other morning anyway, Alex. And I just-” Maria stops herself, dropping her head in her hands in frustration before picking it back up, but not looking at Alex. "He kissed me. He kissed me, and what's worse is that _I wanted him to_."

He doesn't say anything, isn't sure there is anything he can say right away. Maybe he is too late, maybe he has pushed Michael away too many times, maybe he deserves this. It doesn't make it hurt any less to hear. He wants to be angry, he wants to hate Maria, he wants to hate Michael - but he can't. He never could.

"I can't tell you what to do, Maria."

She nods, and he watches a tear roll down her cheek.

"Tell me about him? About the two of you?"

Alex smiles, putting his mug back down on the table and shifting so he's sitting on the sofa next to her. He lets her take his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze in return.

"I _am_ sorry that I never told you. I know I made it sound like he was this one time thing that happened, but it wasn't - it's not. Michael and I, it's never been easy except when we're together. It's like, when we are, the outside world melts away, and nothing else matters. I can forget the Air Force, and my father, and all the things that constantly weigh on my mind," Alex begins, thinking of the way Michael is always so careful when he puts his hands on him, gentle and precious, of that magnetic pull between them every time they're together. He's had one night stands, and failed attempts at something bigger, but nothing and no one has ever made him feel the way Michael Guerin does - like his very soul is ignited, and desperate for more. Like the moments they do get together will never be enough.

"I should have asked."

Alex shakes his head. "I wouldn't have answered. You know that."

Maria nods. "You do seem lighter these days."

He smiles, because it had taken him months to get to this point. He's had to push Michael away, and he's had to send his father to another continent, and somehow he's starting to become friends with Kyle again.

"I feel lighter," he agrees. "But it's been a process."

"Is it just-"

Alex shakes his head, cutting her off.

"Michael is part of it, but some of it are things I had to deal with on my own. For me."

"Your dad?" When he doesn't respond, Maria continues. "You've always been there for me, with mom. I just - I'm here too."

Alex shifts, so he's looking at Maria, keeping their hands clasped together, because he needs that connection, because words have never been his thing. He doesn't like feeling weak, or vulnerable. And opening up, and talking, instead of just doing or showing, has always made him feel split open, and laid bare.

"It's not something-" he pauses, rethinking his words. "Just being there, letting me be there for you, is already a huge help." She nods, and he can see she doesn't _quite_ believe him, but she'll take it for now.


	3. Parts 5 & 6

**PART FIVE**

**(Michael's POV)**

Michael sits down in one of the lawn chairs around the fire pit in front of the Airstream, and stares down at his left hand. It _looks_ fine, and for the most part he’s been able to use it normally because there’s nothing wrong with it, but he’d dropped two beer bottles while working with Liz as they’d’ begun going over some preliminary ideas regarding the alien biology and ways it might be possible to resurrect Max. 

The first time, they’d both just chalked it up to a slip, Liz grabbing the broom, and Michael getting some towels to soak up the liquid. But it was the second time, as they’d sat in Max’s living room, not five minutes later that had Liz asking questions, as if his hand had been injured in the past. He’d stared back at her, confused, because he didn’t remember anything ever happening to it. There was nothing more than his own tiredness to blame, but she’d shaken her head and didn’t look convinced.

Liz had acted like she knew something had happened to it, but when Michael tried to wrack his own mind to fill in the gaps, that same feeling from earlier returned, like the blank in his mind was _wrong_ somehow. But how?

Now as he sits and stares at it, he wonders what is going on that he can’t even remember his own past, the headache from earlier returning, even as he guzzles down beer and acetone to try and dull the pain that refused to subside. 

Isobel’s SUV is a welcome sight, as he watches her park next to his truck and get out of the car. It’s been a weird couple days since they found Max, since they discovered what he’d done to resurrect Rosa, the sacrifice he’d decided to make. In the days since, Michael has listened to to Liz's near constant rants about how angry she is at that decision Max had made - no matter how happy and relieved she was to have Rosa back.

“Heard you pissed Liz off.”

Michael scoffs, picking up the beer he’d put on the ground near his feet, using his _right_ hand because he doesn’t feel like going back inside at the moment for another.

“Any reason you’re surlier than usual?” Isobel asks as she drops into the lawn chair across from him.

“What happened to my left hand?”

He doesn’t expect the confusion on her face. Doesn’t expect her gaze to drift to the hand in question, like he should know.

“You don’t remember?”

“Would I be asking if I did?”

Isobel rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, Michael. You never told me. You just were there that night at the caves, hand wrapped, spouting some story about a bar fight.”

“Bar fight sounds like me.”

“Yeah,” Isobel agrees. “But Max never believed it was the truth.”

That doesn’t help, Michael thinks. Liz hadn’t made any mention of it, but there was always the chance she hadn’t noticed in between her grief for what Max had done to himself and desperately trying to lose herself in finding a way to bring him back to the land of living. He remembers finding somewhere to park the truck that afternoon, he remembers getting the psychic call from Isobel, but his hand getting broken? 

There’s nothing.

“I think you told Max,” Isobel starts after a moment, her voice quieter, tinged with a bit of sadness. “Recently. When he healed it - and I can still hear you begging him not to in my head, Michael - but when he healed it, he said something about how you needed to _stop looking in your review mirror_.”

Michael has no idea what _that_ means, because he’s never had much to look back at - unless Max was talking about the console in the bunker beneath their feet, and the mechanical drawings of a spaceship taped to the walls. But hadn’t he ended up at the Wild Pony that morning? Wasn’t that looking forward, trying to be human, be normal? Hadn't that been what Max and Isobel had been trying to do for so long?

"You mean before he up and sacrificed himself?"

Isobel nods, but doesn't say anything, and Michael feels terrible for snapping at her. She doesn't deserve it, she's lost the person she cares about most.

"They found Noah's body - I got the call this morning. Lightning strike, freak accident. No one suspects anything odd."

Michael nods, because that's exactly what they'd planned - he really felt terrible for her though, having to learn that everything she thought she knew about the man she loved was a lie.

\----

**PART SIX**

**(Alex's POV)**

 **From Liz:** _Can we talk?_

He stares at the text message from Liz for a moment before sending a reply back in the affirmative, including the address of the old Walker AFB. The bunker door access is still operated by a handprint scan, but he's long since removed the scans of anyone who wasn't him or Kyle from the system for safety.

It's only been a couple days, but Alex knows how to use his time efficiently, and he and Kyle have spent an inordinate amount of time combing through the hard drives they acquired at Caulfield, cataloging and searching through the information they’re now in possession of. In addition to the files he’s already got after taking over Project Shepherd from his father, there’s now even more from the Caulfield hard drives. There’s digitized video of autopsies, marked with dates in the weeks immediately following the UFO crash. Reports identifying each alien only by an alphanumeric sequence, like N-38 at Caulfield. He knows that with seventy years of information it's going to take some time to look through each individual file searching for anything that could possibly help Liz find a way to bring Max Evans back to life.

He tries not to think of what kind of information isn’t here in the bunker. What kind of data has most likely been gathered from seventy years of having aliens in captivity at Caulfield. He remembers Flint’s mention of smart bombs, and targeted DNA, and an impending alien invasion, and knows that logically, there would be prototypes and potentially other facilities dedicated to the R&D. He can guess what kind of research can be gleaned from having a prison full of people in captivity.

One thing he can’t get past is Flint’s insistence that the aliens are killers, something Alex pointedly believes to be false. Even with everything that happened with Noah Bracken, he still doesn’t believe it - there’s more proof to him that the aliens _aren’t_ inherently evil, that they’re capable of kindness and empathy just as much as humanity. He refuses to believe that Michael is part of some sort of alien species hellbent on destroying humanity - to Alex it sounds like yet another one of his father’s baseless vendettas, desperate to place blame anywhere but where it belongs.

He’s staring at the monitors, a file open containing the familiar face of one particular alien, detailed reports of experiments and observations. Alex knows how someone gets the kind of information he’s looking at. And now he has a decision to make - to tell Michael about what happened to his mother, what was done to her by Alex’s family, or to keep it from him. To protect him. Because that’s all Alex wants to do - keep Michael safe. 

There had been good news in the midst of the chaos - the police had found Noah Bracken's body. The official cause of death, a lighting strike during the storm. It was odd, to say the least, but it meant that no missing person's case would be opened, no investigation. It had been smart, that morning, for Isobel to immediately report Noah missing - her act as the distraught housewife seemed to help sell the story, and took some of the pressure off while they tried to deal with the other fires that now kept springing up in their lives.

Jenna had been a help in setting up the cover story for Max Evans, at least temporarily. It had been fortunate that in the events following the gala, Max had requested time off citing family obligations. Alex tried not to think too hard about how that had been because he'd discovered his brother-in-law was an alien serial killer. But the request had given them some wiggle room to try and come up with something more long lasting, just in case it took months for Liz to figure out how to bring him back.

His phone pings with another text message from Liz, and he closes the file up on the screen - he’ll decide what to do with the information regarding Michael’s mother later. Liz doesn’t need it, and there’s other information he’s put together to give to her.

When he pushes open the hatch doors to the bunker, he sees Liz leaning against the side of her Subaru, cell phone in hand. She looks marginally better than she did the other day, her eyes not quite so red anymore.

“What is this place?”

Except it’s not Liz that asks, it’s Rosa.

It’s still jarring to see her _alive_ again, very much the same nineteen year old hellion he remembers from ten years ago. She’s dressed in jeans and a hoodie, a baseball cap pulled down over her face.

“The old Walker Air Force base. Apparently they thought it was a good place to conduct the research on the crash afterward.” Liz raised an eyebrow at that, but Alex just shrugged. “Come on.”

Down in the bunker, Alex gives them a moment to take the room in - the metal filing cabinets, the conference table with a hodgepodge of books, files, and maps spread out over it, USGS topos tacked to various corkboard with notes regarding locations of importance, the wall of monitors set up at the far end of the room. He watches as they both walk around in different directions around the table, Liz’s eyes catching the files spread out, Rosa studying one of the maps hanging up.

“Well, you’re not lacking for resources and information.”

“Whatever we have that will help you, it’s yours to use.”

Liz nods, dropping the file back on the table and crossing over to the computer monitors. He’d left up some of the data he’d been cataloging, nothing on the experiments, just security footage, and preliminary reports from at the time of the crash, digitized for easier access.

“So what’s going on?”

Seemingly ignoring his question, Rosa points a finger on the map she’s studying, moving one of the existing push pins from a location further north, and sticking it back in. “You're about twenty miles off with this.”

Alex moves toward her, and sees she’s put a pin in the map near Los Alamos - there’s already one there designating it a research facility associated with Project Shepherd, the one Rosa has moved is now located about ten miles northwest of the town itself. 

Liz seems unaffected by what Rosa is talking about, scrolling for something on her phone, eventually finding it and holding it out toward Alex. He makes a mental note to come back to that map later, and look deeper into whatever Rosa is pointing out, before crossing the room to Liz.

On the screen is a flower.

"After the gala, after that _powder_ Noah used to keep Max and Michael locked in the bunker, I ran some tests, had it analyzed to find out what it was. The flower itself is rare, the only known location is a spot in the Libyan desert. But that's not the strangest part."

Alex raises his eyebrows. 

"Does that flower look familiar to you?"

He reaches out, taking her phone and looking closer at the picture on screen - the shape of the violet colored petals suddenly becoming familiar.

"Is that the same flower in Maria's necklace?"

Liz nods.

"Why would Maria have a necklace with the same flower used by Noah?" Alex pauses at the oddity of that. "But Mimi give her that necklace. At graduation."

Liz nods again.

“Are you thinking the DeLucas are tied into all this?”

“I think it’s possible.”

"Because of the psychic thing?"

"No. Well yes," Liz continues. "But I think the psychic thing is human. I remembered something Isobel told me - she said when she tried to influence Maria, it was like there was a _forcefield_ around her."

Alex tries not to make a Star Wars joke. “When?”

“I’m not sure, Isobel didn’t say. But Maria never takes that necklace off normally.”

"You think Mimi knows?"

Liz nods, glancing over at Rosa, who’s taken a seat on the concrete steps, and is poking at an iPod touch. “She had those _moments_ of clarity that day we took her out. I mean, she talked about Rosa, and she even mentioned Isobel to me.”

“But it’s a family heirloom. It would mean aliens have been here since before the crash.”

“It’s possible,” Alex says, nodding. “For all we know they still could have meant to land here all along. Noah didn’t tell you guys any of this?”

“Noah was tight-lipped about a lot. He wanted the antidote before he’d give up anything useful.”

“Wait, who’s Noah?” Rosa asks, brow furrowed in confusion, a earbud held out in her hand, like she’s only been half listening to everything.

“He was the one controlling Isobel.”

Rosa laughs. “The reason she was acting like a creep. Got it.”

Alex thinks of the necklace, of that morning in the junkyard where he watched it fall out of Michael’s boot and into his hand. It’d just been a necklace at the time, with no connection to the flower inside, but now, knowing what that flower itself could do-

“Did Maria wear the necklace to the gala?”

“No,” Liz replies, her mouth dropping open as the realization must be dawning on her. Alex feels the same. “That must be - but how did _Noah_ know?”

“I think the more important thing is that he did. I'll search the files I've got for anything about that flower specifically." He stops, handing Liz her phone and turning back toward the computer monitors, remembering something.

Caulfield.

"Alex?"

“At Caulfield, at the prison, there were places, doors more specifically, that Michael couldn’t open with his abilities. Like something was blocking him. Near the outer wings of the facility, he could, but once we got further inside, it was like his telekinesis was almost useless.”

Liz furrows her brow. “Sounds similar to how the pollen kept him from being able to use his abilities when Noah trapped him and Max.”

“Possibly.” Alex takes a moment, turning around to the computer monitors and types in a query based on the yellow flower Liz has shown him. He lets it run, and turns back to her. 

"It makes me so angry that he did that to her just because he knew we were onto him," Liz seethes, shifting topics a bit, and Alex immediately picks up that she's referring to _Maria_.

"I know," Alex replies softly, nodding his head, thinking of the way he'd barely learned about what happened. He didn't try to push her to talk, knew that would never get them anywhere. But it had made him angry to learn how Noah had put a date rape drug in Maria's drink, with the sole purpose of being able to control her. There were so many other ways the night could have ended with something like that in her system, and part of him was glad Noah was dead for all the things he'd done.

"I wish-" Liz paused, obviously frustrated. "She should know the truth about what happened that night. Why she was drugged. I hate lying to her about that."

It's a tough spot they're in now, trying to fill in all the lies they're being forced to keep - the one they've come up with about Max, the one about Noah, pretending none of them know what happened at the gala, and keeping Rosa's _reappearance_ a secret for now.


	4. Parts 7 & 8

**PART SEVEN**

**(Michael's POV)**

Michael had discovered the old fallout shelter back in high school when he spent his free time at Sanders, working on whatever car came through during the time he wasn't in class. He'd found the old Chevy, and made a deal with Sanders that if he could get it running again he could keep it. The old man had smiled, let out one of his big belly laughs and replied, "Sure, kid. If you get it running, it's yours." Back then, Michael was always looking for excuses not to go back to the group home, looking for a way to declare himself an emancipated minor from a system that had spit on him time and time again. How stuff worked was Michael's specialty, he loved to take things apart just to figure out what made them tick before reassembling them even better than before. The bunker entrance had been concealed at the time by an old van that Michael had moved while he dug through the junkyard looking for salvageable parts. When he asked, Sanders either really hadn't noticed or didn't care that Michael had stumbled upon it.

The bunker became as close to home as Michael knew he would ever get. He started scouring the area for drafting and light tables. He gathered up the collection of ship pieces he'd started when he was eleven and moved them from their various hiding places around Roswell and into the bunker. Finally he had a place to assemble them, watch the console pieces fuse together to become whole. His drafting teacher, old Mr. Carmine, had helped him put together a toolbox of things he'd need for his drafting classes in college - back before he deferred his admission because of Isobel. It wasn't much, but it had been a start.

The Airstream came later, after Michael started working on the Foster Ranch. Even though he wasn't working at the junkyard anymore, Sanders had handed him the keys, spouting off a story about how an acquaintance was looking to scrap the old thing anyway. Michael had a soft spot for old, broken, and forgotten things, so he set to work fixing it into something livable. He hadn’t been surprised later, when he’d approached Sanders about working in the junkyard again, the old man had just nodded and pointed in the direction of the space where he should park the Airstream. 

He’s sitting at the drafting table, a schematic of the inner workings of one of the engines to the ship he’s been designing and modifying since high school taped to the board, when he kicks his feet out and hits something. With a grunt of annoyance, Michael pushes back on the stool he’s sitting on, and peers down beneath the table - there’s a basic brown storage box, the lid askew from where he’d kicked it. Reaching down, Michael grabs the box and pulls it toward him, tossing the lid on top of the drafting table and peers inside. Composition notebooks, folded up sketches on trace paper, and a stack of photographs.

He pulls the photographs out, staring at the one on top - it's him and Isobel, a silly candid from one day the three of them had been hanging out at the park near the Evans'. Michael had given Isobel bunny ears, and Max had snapped the photo, the three of them laughing the entire time. There are several other photos from that day beneath it, pictures of the three of them, pictures of him and Max, pictures of Max and Isobel - all laughing and smiling, a happy moment in time preserved forever. He flips through them all one-by-one, dropping them back into the box, before he comes to one that's different.

It's him, from high school, a backwards baseball cap hiding his curls, and in his hand is a guitar resting on the ground. But it's the other boy in the picture that throws Michael - a boy with black hair, rings adorning his fingers as he focuses on a chord progression on the guitar in his hands. And Michael - the younger version of himself in the photo is staring at the boy like he admires him, like there's something _more_ between them than just two guys hanging out, playing guitar. He stares at the photo, as if somehow the answer to _who_ will just suddenly appear on his mind if he concentrates hard enough. The back of the photo offers nothing helpful, only three words in handwriting Michael doesn't recognize: _to remember me_.

The same feeling from earlier, as if that blank space, as if not remembering the identity of the other boy in the photo is _wrong_ somehow. The headache that had started the other morning re-emerges, and Michael feels like suddenly his head has been placed in a vice grip. He scrambles to get his cell phone out of his pocket, unlocking it as he heads toward the ladder leading outside, immediately dialing Isobel's number as soon as he's got a signal.

She pulls into the junkyard not fifteen minutes later, hair tied high on her head, and a look of _annoyance_ plastered on her face. Michael's sitting in one of the chairs that surround the fire pit, the photograph still in his hand. He hasn't been able to stop looking at it, wondering what it means that there is this photo of him and someone else that, no matter how hard he tries, he can't remember. He thinks maybe it shouldn't be a big deal, except it had been in a stack with photos of him and Max and Isobel - these aren't things he'd toss and forget about. This photo being stuck in the pile feels deliberate, he just can't understand _why_.

"I've got less than an hour before I have to be somewhere for a meeting, so can we make this quick?" Isobel asks, all business as she sits down in the chair closest to him.

Michael doesn't answer, just holds the photo out for her, and watches as she takes it, her gaze shifting away from him. He watches a smile form, small and practiced before she's looking back up to meet his gaze.

"I've never seen this before - is this from high school?"

Michael nods. "I think the backwards baseball cap gives that away."

"Is this what you called me about? To show me an old photo of you and Alex Manes?"

Michael frowns, because that's the guy Liz had mentioned the other day. But why is the younger version of himself in the photograph _looking_ at Alex Manes like that? Why are they playing guitar together? Were they friends? Or something else? And why can't Michael remember any of this?

"That's Alex Manes?"

Now it's Isobel's turn to frown. "Yes?"

"Who is he?"

"What do you mean-"

Michael shakes his head, interrupting. "No, who is he to _me_?"

Silence falls between them, and Michael watches Isobel glance down at the photo, and back up at Michael, the crease on her brow growing ever so slightly, like she's trying to work out a puzzle.

"I'm not sure."

"Isobel," Michael growls because there is no way she wouldn't be aware of someone in his life like this. He and Max may have been shit at communicating, and opening up to one another, but he’s never been closed off with Isobel in the same way.

"He's something, okay. He's important to you. But you - you never wanted to talk about him, so I never pried." She hands the photo back to him. "Why are you asking?"

Michael lets out a deep breath, leaning forward in his chair.

"Because I don't know him! This photo? I don't remember it being taken. Liz mentioned his name the other day, and I had no idea who she was talking about. And now you tell me, he and I have a history?" Michael flips the photo over, glancing down at the handwritten words, trying desperately to ignore the headache that makes him want to just end this entire conversation.

"What do you mean mean you don't remember?"

Michael shakes his head. He doesn't know what to think about this - he knows the Manes name. Knows the legacy tied to the UFO crash that brought him, Isobel, and Max to earth. But he doesn't understand why, if Alex has been there the whole time, why he has no memories of him.

Why it's just one specific person that is missing.

"You don't-" she cuts herself off. "Nothing?"

" _Isobel_."

"Is this why you asked about your hand the other day?"

He nods, holding the aforementioned hand up. "I should remember this, right? I should know what happened to my hand, why it looks fine but I can't use it perfectly, like it _hasn't_ been used properly in years."

He knows there's a bit of desperation in his voice, now that there are some pieces she's laid out for him. Pieces that don't belong to his memories, things that don't fit in with the memories in his head. But the physical evidence is starting to point to something else, not to mention the pounding in his head that gets worse the longer this conversation has gone on.

He lets her walk over and pull him into a hug, clutching tightly to her. 

"I've got a meeting with the caterers for the memorial service, but we'll figure this out."

He nods, falling back into the lawn chair. She squeezes his hand one last time, before crossing the junkyard and sliding into the driver seat of her SUV. Michael watches her drive away, before pulling the photo back out of his pocket and staring at it. He flips it over and looks at the writing again, wondering what happened that made Alex Manes give him the photo at all.

Michael thinks about the acetone and alcohol he keeps in the Airstream, and decides maybe a trip to Wild Pony is a better idea.

\----

**PART EIGHT**

**(Alex's POV)**

Alex doesn't get many chances these days to stop by the Crashdown - the base, as well as the cabin, aren't in town limits. It's not that the driving bothers him either, at this point he's almost used to it. But he uses a day off as an excuse to finally show himself, ducking his face at the attention Arturo lavishes on him, and tries not to flinch at the perfunctory _thank you for your service_. Arturo sits him in the booth in the back corner, a favorite spot from when he was younger so Alex could keep his eye on the door, and promises to fix him up something to eat right away.

He's working through a plate of fries and a chocolate milkshake when Isobel Evans walks through the door, heels of her boots clacking away on the linoleum flooring, as if announcing her presence. Alex watches from his seat as Isobel speaks with Liz, before watching them turn their heads in his direction, the silent _sorry_ written on Liz's face as Isobel nods and makes her way over to him.

"I need to talk to you."

Alex doesn't acknowledge her immediately, just continues dipping the fry in his hand before popping it in his mouth. He watches Isobel slide into the booth, and takes a deep breath to prepare himself for whatever she is going to say.

"We have a problem," she begins, and Alex can't say he's surprised, but he and Isobel Evans have never exactly been friends, or _friendly_. Even in high school, her popular girl status, and treatment of Maria, was enough for him to dislike her.

"We," he replies. "Or you?"

She rolls her eyes in response, a move he recognizes all too well.

"Michael doesn't like to talk about whatever is going on with the two of you, and I've never pried because that gets you nowhere with him." She pauses, stealing a fry from his plate. "But I also know that you two have a history."

"Isobel," Alex cuts her off, because do they really need to talk about that? "Cut the bullshit and tell me what you need."

Alex thinks nothing can surprise him, that learning about aliens, and Project Shepherd, the survivors at Caulfield, as well as Jim Valenti's death, meant he was done having the rug pulled out from underneath him. Learning about Noah Bracken, and particularly how he'd used Isobel, had been almost the icing on the cake of awful truths that were becoming commonplace these days.

"Something is wrong with Michael"

He's survived his father, he's survived three tours in war zones, but there will always, _always_ , be a part of him that loses all ability for rational and coherent thought when it comes to Michael Guerin. He long ago accepted that about himself, knows that Michael is part of him, that their connection is an ever living thing, constantly thrumming just under his skin, buzzing to life so that it becomes impossible to ignore when they're near each other. 

When Alex doesn't speak, because he doesn’t even know how to respond, Isobel continues.

"He called me the other day, and showed me this picture of the two of you, I guess from high school? I'd never seen it before, but Michael was acting like he'd never seen it either. Like he didn't even recognize you."

Alex doesn't skip a beat.

"And you think he was telling the truth."

"I do, because earlier in the week he'd called and asked if I knew what happened to his hand."

He really wishes he could ask Arturo to spike his milkshake.

"But then I realized, Michael has never told _me_ the truth about it. He's lied, a lot, about it. His excuses were flimsy - bar fight, junkyard accident - they all sounded like bullshit. So I knew it had to be something big that happened, there had to be a reason."

"But I thought Max healed it?"

Isobel nods, confirming Alex's suspicions from that morning in front of the Airstream. "He did. But I think he's feeling the side effects of a decade of not using it normally."

Alex nods - atrophied muscles from disuse makes sense. Even if Max had healed everything, the new muscle wouldn't be fully functional, there'd be no existing muscle memory in the nerves, it's got to be built up from scratch again. 

"But you don’t think he’s lying."

Isobel ignores him. "He mentioned Caulfield to me. And I know that couldn't have been easy-"

"I’m not going to fill in the blanks of what happened there, Isobel."

She ignores him again. "But what this is tied to something that happened there?"

Alex bites his tongue. "How? He never came into contact with anyone there, they were behind sealed doors in a holding area."

Isobel raises her eyebrow, challenging him. "You and I both know that's not true."

Alex stares back, not letting up on letting Isobel know he's also not going to be giving an inch in regards to this. It's not surprising if Michael told her, it seems more likely that of anyone, Michael would have told Max or Isobel about what they found at Caulfield. Maybe not all the details, but Michael finding his mother is something huge and life changing - especially when both he and Isobel know how important it was to Michael.

"You think she had something to do with this?"

Isobel nods her head.

"We don't know much of anything about ourselves. So I can't even be certain what we are or aren't capable of, and I'd rather assume we can do something than can't."

"So you're assuming you can remove memories?"

Isobel shrugs, taking another fry.

"I've been thinking about it, since that day at Max's house. When you guys mentioned Maria DeLuca's mother. Plus, don't forget my dead husband was able to mind control me for fourteen years and no one noticed."

Alex lets that sit in his mind for a moment. He'd briefly considered Mimi knowing about Project Shepherd, about potentially having worked on it with his father and Jim Valenti. Her dementia now made it harder to ascertain the truth, when it was so often mixed in with plot from _Independence Day_. But Alex hated the idea that Mimi's decreasing health was alien-related. Of all the people in his life that had to be _negatively_ affected by aliens in this way, why couldn't it have been his father, and not the people he actually looked up to?

"It's just a theory," Isobel continues. "You're the one with access to a secret government conspiracy full of research. Put it to use, Manes."


	5. Parts 9 & 10

**PART NINE**

**(Michael's POV)**

Michael is in the spare bedroom at Max’s house, a room which Liz has commandeered as her research lab in the meantime while they figure out a way to resurrect Max and bring him back to the land of the living, when he hears yelling from the living room. He’s been standing in front of a whiteboard for what feels like hours, staring at an equation he’s not sure he’s ever going to make sense of, the raised voices giving him an excuse for a much needed break.

He doesn’t expect to see Maria standing there in the middle of Max's living room.

“What’s going on?” Michael asks, suddenly wary of saying anything. Though he can already guess what Maria _does_ know if she’s standing next to Rosa not looking freaked out in the slightest.

"I told Maria."

"That wasn't your secret to tell!" Liz insists, the anger evident in her voice.

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Maria replies, not looking angry, but disappointed. Michael assumes it’s because they’re supposed to be friends, but Liz is right - it wasn’t her secret to tell, and Michael hadn’t thought it was necessary for Maria to know.

"But it was mine," Isobel says from where she's leaning against the kitchen counter. "Call it an apology."

"An apology?" Michael can't help himself, because Isobel doesn't have anything to apologize for. Not when she was the one who was possessed by a serial killer. Not when she was the one who they'd lied to for ten years to protect her. "For _what_? We've been over this-"

"Michael, don’t."

Michael shakes his head at the ridiculous thought of _Isobel_ feeling responsible for anything that’s happened over the past ten years.

"I don't care," Maria interrupts, her voice raised and firm. "I was ready to believe in a magical faith healer. I just want to know if someone can help my mom."

Maria hasn’t been completely forthcoming with information about what’s wrong with her mom, she’d kept it rather simple, but Michael had assumed she had to have been talking about some sort of memory issues or dementia when she'd brought up her mom's tendency to wander that evening he'd returned the Wild Pony sign he'd fixed. 

Michael watches Liz's shoulders sag, her face softening in an instant before she's crossing the room and enveloping Maria in a hug. He doesn't move from his spot - the two of them still haven't discussed that morning at the Pony. He'd gone to the Pony the night before to drink away the headache pounding away at his skull, Maria managing to avoid him the entire night.

And if she didn't want to talk to him, fine. He could instead lose himself in helping Liz figure out a way to bring Max back. The more he lets himself get lost in the work, the less he can focus on the mysterious photograph in his bunker as well.

Lost in thought, Michael misses how Liz is staring at Isobel, his gaze still on Maria. 

“You talked to Alex.”

“I made a suggestion.”

Liz takes a step forward. “If you went into his head-”

“I don’t need to do that. Not when-” Isobel cuts herself off, her gaze snapping instantly to Michael before returning to look at Liz. “He’s already looking to see if he can find anything anyway.”

More Alex Manes, Michael thinks. It’s been days, and it’s getting to the point where he’s about to just tell Isobel to go into his head and find out what’s going on, even though he’d put a strict _no mind influencing_ ban on her since the first time she’d discovered her abilities when they were teenagers.

“What do you mean, went into his head?” Maria asks, glancing between Liz and Isobel.

“It’s my _ability_ ,” Isobel emphasizes, waving her hand around. “I can go into someone’s mind, and _influence_ their thoughts.”

“What like, make them tell the truth?”

Isobel shrugs. “Something like that.”

“Can you do it with my mom? Get inside her head, do whatever it is you do?”

Maria’s question has everyone turning toward her, including Michael. But she’s right, she was willing to trust a magical faith healer out in the middle of Texas, so aliens probably isn’t much weirder at this point.

“I can try, if you want-”

“Isobel-” Liz warns, but Isobel shakes her off. Michael watches as Maria reaches out and takes Liz’s hand, the two of them sharing a look, and entire silent conversation passing between them before Liz seems to back off with a simple nod of her head.

“Every day that passes is a day I lose another piece of her. Right now, I’m not sure anything could make it worse.”

Isobel nods. “Then I can try.”

Michael pushes himself off the wall he’s been leaning against, heading back down the hallway and into the spare bedroom, back to the whiteboard. He hears a soft knock on the door a moment later - not Liz, she’d walk right in talking about whatever was on her mind; and not Isobel, he’d hear the heels of her boots on the hardwood floor.

Maria.

“I talked to Alex,” she begins, and Michael turns to face her, dropping the marker he’d just picked up back on the desk. “I like you, but there is a part of me that can’t move past how he feels about you. You keep saying the two of you are over, but Alex is still so full of hope - it practically explodes out of him when he’s thinking about you.”

Michael doesn’t know what to say to her, if there’s anything he can say when everyone around him seems to know a lot more than he does about Alex, and who Alex is to him - or at least, is supposed to be. And how is everyone else so sure that Alex is what he even wants?

"You need to talk to him, Guerin."

He nods, not sure what else to do, because there’s not really anything he can say. He’s known since that first moment he found the photograph in the bunker, that he’s going to have to talk to _Alex Manes_ directly to find out what’s going on, but it’s not something he’s put high on the priority list at the moment.

"How am I supposed to talk to him when I don't even know him?"

Maria is taken aback by his question, her feet inching back closer into the open doorway. Michael immediately regrets his raised voice, but this is starting to really get ridiculous. And of course, as if right on cue at his mention of Alex Manes, the headache that started several days ago reappears like clockwork.

"Liz!" Maria turns her head to the side as she calls out for her best friend, her gaze still fixed on Michael like she can't quite believe what he's just said.

Liz appears in the doorway, cell phone in hand. "What happened? Everything okay?"

"Why is Guerin acting like he doesn't know who Alex is?"

"Because I don't think he does." Liz pauses, glancing down at her phone for a moment before sliding it into the back pocket of her jeans. "I'm working on it."

"You're what?" Michael bites out immediately, annoyed at the implication that there’s something to be _fixed_ about him, because she definitely hasn't bothered to talk to him about it.

“Listen, Michael. You should know who Alex is. There’s no reason you don’t, and we need to figure out why. I’m worried that this is similar to what happened to Isobel-”

Michael recoils at the idea of someone slipping into his mind unnoticed and undetected. “ _No one_ is controlling me, Liz.”

“Okay,” she acquiesces, holding her hands up.

“Besides,” he continues, because this is _ridiculous_. “How would you know who I do and don’t know?”

“Because Alex told me,” Maria says, quietly, her gaze fixed on him. Michael suddenly feels like he’s under a microscope, being studied. He knows he’s getting defensive, and he knows Liz is right, because at the very least the picture in the bunker should have been enough proof there was something wrong with him. Hell, if he's really being honest it's the constant headaches that make him want to figure out what the hell is going on just to make them stop flaring up at every mention of _Alex Manes._

But right now, he just didn’t like this feeling of being caged in.

“What did _Alex_ tell you?” Michael snaps, harsher than he means, wishing also for some acetone.

“That you’re the guy who kissed him at the museum when he was seventeen. That you could have made him stay in Roswell all those years ago.”

"Museum?" 

Maria frowns, her eyes shifting between him and Liz. "Yeah, the UFO Emporium. He said you showed up while he was working one day-"

This is all too much. This is an entire _lifetime_ of memories everyone else seems to know about but he doesn’t have.

Michael pushes past Liz and Maria, walking by Isobel who is sitting on the couch in the living room, and pushes open the front door. The cool winter air feels nice after being cooped up in the house for so long. Michael doesn’t waste a moment though, sliding into the driver side of his truck, and driving away. He needs to think, and maybe he needs to not be around anyone for a while.

\----

**PART TEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

There’s a dark green Jeep parked outside the cabin when Alex arrives home late, the sun already setting on the horizon, coloring the sky in hues of orange, pink, and purple. Not expecting visitors, and not being familiar with the vehicle, Alex cuts the engine, and quickly runs through who _does_ know that he’s been living in Jim Valenti’s old hunting cabin.

It’s a short list.

But if someone wanted to get the drop on him, they wouldn’t have parked the car in plain sight, and Alex takes the tiniest bit of comfort in that as he pushes open the front door.

So it’s not entirely surprising when Hunter, the second eldest Manes, is sitting on the couch, tapping away on his cell phone and looking entirely too relaxed considering he’s broken into his younger brother’s home. Alex drops his backpack on the floor next to the door, and rolls his eyes when Hunter holds up his pointer finger.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Alex asks, not waiting until Hunter is finished.

“Hello to you too, baby brother.”

If Hunter is here making impromptu visits, then that means he knows something. For all his words about trying to protect Alex when they were younger, Flint had been nothing more than a bystander, never trying to stand up to their father, preferring to fall in line, lest their father’s ire be turned on him. Hunter had truly been Alex’s only ally, but by the time high school rolled around and Alex was getting the worst of it, Hunter was already gone, fighting in their father’s war, unable to do anything from hundreds of miles away.

In the kitchen, Alex fills a glass of water, and leans against the counter, waiting for Hunter to finish whatever he’s doing, hoping whatever this is will be quick because he's itching to take his prosthetic off finally.

He’s assumed, after finding Flint at Caulfield, that Harlan and Hunter were also involved in their father’s vendetta - it was far too unlikely that only Flint had been roped in, though Alex knew that Harlan probably came of his own volition, having always been the perfect son to Jesse Manes, complete with the right skin tone and hair color, as to not be reminded of their mother like Jesse had liked to tell Alex every time he slammed him into a wall or rammed a steel toed boot into Alex’s ribs.

Hunter finishes his text, and pushes up off the couch, only making it far enough to stand in the entry to the kitchen, leaning against the door frame.

“Harlan isn’t happy about losing Caulfield.”

Alex rolls his eyes. The twins had always been their father’s favorites, even as children - Alex could remember countless times as a child being told he needed to be more like Harlan, more like Hunter. 

“Dad isn’t quite as concerned-”

"Dad's awake?" Alex reaches to take his cell phone out of his back pocket. His father has been in Roswell Community, handcuffed to a bed in ICU for days now. If anything changed Kyle was supposed to-

“Woke up this morning.”

Alex scowls and sends off a text to Kyle.

“Harlan’s furious at Flint.”

Alex frowns, “Why?”

“Yyou're a real idiot for bringing Michael Guerin to Caulfield in the first place, but Flint is the bigger moron for not even realizing there was an alien walking freely around the building.”

Alex feels his blood run cold.

“How does Harlan know about Michael?”

Hunter rolls his eyes, like the answer is obvious. “The security camera footage.”

Of course, Alex thinks. Of fucking course. He’d considered the possibility of the security camera footage being backed up to an offsite location - he hasn’t had the opportunity to create a trace to find out if and where it’s being stored.

Alex's cell phone chimes, Kyle's reply to his text message, confirming his father was discharged less than 12 hours ago, the request signed off by some higher ranking official in the Air Force to have him transferred and treated at the hospital at the base. All done while Kyle was off shift, of course.

_Fuck._

“Dad had already done most of the legwork on Guerin, not to mention the Evans twins. But Max and Isobel Evans will more than likely be left alone, even if they are suspected of being survivors from the crash - their parents alone could cause quite the uproar, and the military wouldn’t want that kind of attention and exposure.”

So again, it all came down to Michael being left behind at the group home. Michael being shuffled around his entire life, and not having a permanent home or family. It all came down to it looking like if Michael Guerin _disappeared_ no one would come looking. Just like Noah Bracken's victims, chosen because no one would miss them.

The thought made Alex sick to his stomach.

“Guerin, on the other hand-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Alex seethes, staring his brother down. Hunter puts his hands up in mock defeat, and drops into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Alex stays where he is, leaning back against the counter. 

“Listen, I came here to let you know what’s happening. Harlan wouldn’t think twice about eliminating you, and Flint-”

“Flint is too concerned with getting dad’s approval, I know.”

“You’ve gotta be careful, Alex. If Harlan thinks he’s got your weak spot-”

Alex grits his teeth. “I don’t have a weak spot.”

“Everyone’s got a weakness,” Hunter argues, playing with the notepad Alex keeps on the kitchen table for scribbling down groceries or to do lists around for chores around the cabin he needs to remember. "Even Harlan."

Alex _knows_ that Michael is his soft spot, has known since that day in the shed ten years ago. Michael Guerin has been a constant thought in his mind from the moment Alex handed him that guitar senior year. And it’s not that Alex minds - he knows, as easily as breathing - that he loves Michael. But he’d made a promise to himself after what happened in the shed, that he would never be that helpless boy again.

Coming from Hunter, it’s not a threat. It’s a warning. One that Alex knows is not to be taken lightly.

"I'm being careful," Alex insists, even though he knows that he needs to re-evaluate how he's been approaching things. First up is going to be figuring out once and for all what happened to Michael, because it's a lot harder to protect someone when they don't know who you are. 

After a moment, Alex reaches into his pocket again and pulls out his own cell phone back out, opening up the picture of Maria’s necklace, and holding the phone out for Hunter to see. “Do you recognize that?”

Hunter nods, because _of course_ he recognizes it.

"It's a flower."

"Don't be an ass-"

Hunter hands the phone back.

"The flower, and the pollen it produces, neutralizes the aliens' abilities. It was discovered not long after the crash, and subsequently worked into the construction of any of the buildings that would be holding survivors - the walls, the locks, the cells. Made escape next to impossible for them.

Alex notes that at the least Hunter sounds disgusted by the idea of holding people in captivity, so it's a start. Flint hadn't extended the same courtesy, going on about research developments instead. 

“So why does Maria DeLuca have a necklace with it?”

“How am I supposed to know-”

Alex levels his brother with a look, because he knows Hunter has the answer. Hunter has been involved in one way or another with his father’s alien vendetta since Alex was in high school. He knows more than he wants to admit.

“The DeLucas fashioned it as a means of protection. To keep the aliens from messing with their minds.” Harlan stares back at him, like the answer should have been obvious. “Didn’t Mimi tell Maria this?”

Alex shakes his head. If it was Mimi trying to protect Maria, to not get her involved in anything alien related too early, especially if she’d known about his father and Jim Valenti being involved, it made perfect sense. Jim had apparently done the same for him and Kyle, leaving clues for when they were ready, and not forcing the legacy on them.

It also meant the DeLucas may have known about aliens far longer than anyone else.

But that still didn’t explain what was going on with Mimi and her dementia.

“We didn’t even realize there was anything special about it until recently - at a town function, someone was able to control Maria because she wasn’t wearing it."

Harlan snaps to attention. “Who was controlling her?”

“His name was Noah Bracken. He was a survivor from the crash, who was also responsible for 14 murders in the area since 2008.”

“The murders dad was looking into.”

Alex nods, and then thinks back to something else Hunter had just mentioned, about the facilities themselves.

Alex mulls over his words, ignoring Hunter's nonchalant attitude toward what essentially qualified as alien Guantanamo, and thinking about how just between Max, Isobel, and Michael there exist three different sets of abilities.

“You said _facilities_. Plural. Where are the rest?”

“Planning on blowing them up too?”

“Hunter,” Alex growls, annoyed. If there are more survivors out there, more being held captive somewhere, something had to be done. This has to _end_.

“Outside Los Alamos.”

Alex thinks of Caulfield, and his father’s tight hold over the operations, going as far as to bring Flint into the fold, and remembers Rosa in the Project Shepherd bunker, pointing to a place north of the town, her words about his father getting the location wrong sticking in his mind. Hunter is talking about a facility, Rosa was referring to something else.

“Have you ever encountered any that have _removed_ memories?”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“Just answer the question.”

“No,” Hunter replies. “But given all the other abilities we’ve encountered, it’s entirely possible just none of the survivors we have possess it or exhibited it while under surveillance."

“How much have you discovered about the alien’s abilities from keeping them captive? From the experiments and whatever else our family has done?”

Hunter glares at him, but Alex needs to hear it. He’s sifted through boxes and cabinets and hard drives full of files detailing the horrific things done to those who survived and were captured. But he needs to hear it from someone in his own family, someone who has put their name on this legacy and this project.

“If you know about their abilities, then you know they’re not all the same. Though sometimes there is some overlap. It’s not entirely clear why that happens, but it’s been hypothesized it’s something related to their genetics.” Hunter shakes his head. “More than once dad has gone off about how unfortunate it was no children were retrieved from the crash site.”

Alex shudders at the thought of what the government would have done to _children_ , especially after knowing they were more than happy to lock up and torture full grown adults.

“Flint said you and Valenti found out the truth about N-38?” Alex nods, and waits for Hunter to continue. “I’m sure you’ll find the research eventually in the Project Shepherd files, but since we're’ here - when the subjects were originally captured, N-38 did not present as not being able to come into contact with anyone. That was something that developed years later after extensive testing-”

“You mean torture.”

Hunter levels him with a look, but Alex refuses to back down. _Testing_ is a nice sanitized way to talk about locking up living people to experiment on them.

“They’re dangerous.”

“You sound like dad,” Alex snaps back. “Who, by the way, used to break my bones when I didn’t act how he wanted. So don’t tell me what’s _dangerous_.”

After a moment, Hunter pushes back from the table standing up, and heading back toward the front door. With a shake of his head at how ridiculous this entire conversation has been, Alex gets up and follows him, while mentally making a list of all the things he’s got to do in light of the information Hunter has shared with him - including working out the problem with what’s wrong with Michael.

That seems like it’s going to be the most important thing at the moment, even before they think about bringing Max back.

“Just remember what I said, about blind spots,” Hunter says, pulling the door open. “You know dad and Harlan-”

“I got it.” Alex interrupts, shaking his head, watching as Hunter bounds back down the front steps of the cabin, and slides into the driver seat of his Jeep. The visit had been a surprise, but it was nice to know at least one of his brothers was trying to do something right.


	6. Part 11 & 12

**PART ELEVEN**

**(Michael's POV)**

The pod cave is the quietest, most isolated place Michael could think of as he peeled out of Max’s driveway. He’d taken one of the blankets he kept in the truck, and sat down on the cave floor, his gaze focused on the illuminating glow of the pods. He knew, from Isobel’s time in the pod that it didn’t matter what they said here on the outside, the person inside wouldn’t hear it. Max had spent weeks in this cave, reading and talking to Isobel while he and Liz had worked on finding a cure. Isobel had said it has been as if she'd blinked and suddenly it was months later.

He didn't even have anything to tell Max except what an absolute idiot he was for sacrificing himself to bring Rosa Ortecho back from the dead. And it was still Max's absolute devotion to Liz Ortecho that Michael had trouble wrapping his head around - why was it so important for him to make that sacrifice for one person?

"Guerin?"

It's a voice he doesn't recognize, and yet every inch of Michael's body feels like it relaxes, no longer on edge. Michael turns toward the cave entrance, to see someone he doesn't recognize - at least not right away. He looks different, older, than the photograph Michael has spent hours over the past several days staring at. His hair isn't gelled and spiky, there's no septum piercing, no gauge in his left ear. His fingers are bare of rings.

He's beautiful.

"You’re Alex."

He watches Alex take a deep breath, as if he wasn't expecting the recognition at all, before nodding and taking another step closer into the cave. But it’s not really recognition on Michael’s part - he still has no idea who Alex is to him, other than they’ve had some sort of relationship that everyone else only knows bits and pieces to.

His headache, which had subsided in the hours since Liz and Maria had mentioned _Alex Manes_ at Max's place, reappears with full force. It's become obvious that _Alex Manes_ is tied to the headaches, and that it seems to be related to why he doesn't recognize him or know him despite having seen evidence to the contrary.

"Maria got worried, and called me."

"You look different," Michael says, not knowing what else to talk about. "From the photo."

Alex frowns for a moment before the corner of his mouth upturns into what Michael thinks might be a smile.

“I should - that photo is ten years old.”

"How did you know I was here?"

"Process of elimination - when you weren't at the junkyard, I came here," Alex replies, but that doesn't mean anything to Michael. Why does Alex know about the caves? Why is it the first place he thought to look after Sanders? Michael still is having trouble believing that there is someone on this planet, someone _human_ , who spent time getting to know him, who cares about him. And if Alex does, then why is Alex what he can't remember? What happened between them? "You used to park your truck on the overlook, and we'd - _I'd_ play the guitar and you'd tell me stories about the aliens who crash landed in 1947."

"We do that a lot?"

Alex's smile is sad, and it doesn't reach his eyes, and Michael realizes how badly he wants to make that happen, to be a reason for this beautiful man to smile more.

"A bit after graduation. Sometimes when I was here on leave."

Michael frowns. "On leave?"

"From the Air Force."

Michael feels like he should have expected that - every Manes in Roswell is tied to the military in some way - why would _Alex_ Manes be any different.

It feels strange, out of place, to hear bits and pieces of a life he has no knowledge of, and yet he believes Alex. The past several days have only gotten progressively more confusing every time someone has mentioned Alex Manes, and Michael hasn't been able work out what is so special about him that caused Michael to forget him completely.

"The Manes family and the government is responsible for-"

"I know," Alex interrupts, that sad look returning to his face again. "I know."

"Liz said you weren't a part of it."

"Perk of being the black sheep of the family."

Michael doesn't like that, doesn't like that this beautiful man standing in front of him could ever be thought of as an outsider. Liz had been adamant that Alex was nothing like his family, and if she was right, if he hadn't been involved in the systematic imprisonment and torture of Michael's people because his own family thought him an outsider-

"Why?"

He watches as Alex walks closer, coming deeper into the cave until he's standing in front of Michael, looking down at him. He's backlit by the glow of the pods, and Michael can't help but stare - how can one person be so incredibly attractive?

"My father has a very specific idea about what makes a _real_ man."

Whoever this person is, whoever Alex's father is, Michael hates him, even though he barely knows who Alex is. Even if Michael had never had a family, never been adopted, never had parents of his own on this planet - he’s still thought it an absurd notion that parents could hate their children. His mother had seen him, and he had felt nothing but love from her - even though they barely had thirty seconds together. But she had loved him in the way he'd always dreamed of being loved.

"Your father sounds like a real dick."

"He is," Alex says distantly, as if lost in his thoughts, and Michael wishes he could ask what he's thinking about. He wants to know everything about Alex Manes, especially why they seem to be at peace in each other's presence and yet still completely on edge.

The silence falls between them, and Michael watches Alex close the remaining space between them, sitting down on the rock Michael is leaning against, kicking his right leg out in front of him like it needs to stretch.

"I've been doing some research, and I talked to Hunter - one of my brothers,” Alex clarifies quickly, realizing that Michael has no idea who _Hunter_ is. “And I think something else may have happened to you at Caulfield."

Michael jolts forward, turning so he can see Alex's face.

"Caulfield? You know about that?"

Alex nods.

"How? Did Kyle tell you-"

"I was there with you," comes the reply, and Michael freezes. Caulfield is a haze in his mind - he remembers traveling with Kyle Valenti, exploring the grounds, including the locked doors he couldn't open. He remembers snapping at Valenti more than once, and remembers standing outside as the building crumbled into ash from the explosion.

But if Alex Manes was there? Was he the reason Michael left his mother? That he didn't die in that explosion? And for him to make that decision, to leave his people, _his mother_ , Alex Manes must be incredibly important to him.

And if that was the case, why couldn't’ he remember someone who meant so much?

“What do you mean, _something else_ may have happened?”

"You went through a lot in 24 hours - Caulfield, your mom, Max healing you twice in one night-"

"Twice?" Michael asks the question before remembering what Isobel had told him, about Max grabbing him without permission, about healing it against Michael's pleas not to. He remembers Noah attacking him at Max's, stabbing him with the jagged edge of the broken glass syringe, remembers feeling the blood pour out of his body, soaking his hair, his shirt, and staining the tile floor. But there’s nothing about Max healing him a _second_ time - the time Isobel had spoken of when he’d asked.

"Yeah." Alex pauses, staring at Michael, but not elaborating, and Michael doesn't ask. "I think your brain is reacting to trauma - to being forced to deal with multiple traumatic events in such a close period of time."

It still doesn't make sense, there are still pieces missing, something Alex isn't telling him. Michael doesn't know what exactly, but it feels like it's probably related to why _Alex_ is what's missing. And Michael doesn't miss how resigned Alex looks to being the thing Michael doesn't remember, as if he somehow deserves this fate.

Like penance for something that happened between them.

"What happened to my hand? Isobel said Max healed it."

Michael watches Alex look away, his gaze fixed elsewhere, somewhere off behind the pods. He doesn't push, just waits, lets Alex work through whatever is happening in his mind at the question.

"My father caught us. When we were seventeen," Alex begins, his voice quiet. "He put his hands on my neck, and you - you tried to pull him off me and he took a hammer to your hand."

A hammer. The bone must have been crushed then. Healed improperly in the aftermath. It wasn't like he could go to a hospital to have it set correctly, not when he'd been a homeless seventeen year old kid at the time, living out of his truck. 

"That doesn't sound like your fault."

He hears Alex sigh. "No, I don't think you ever blamed me for it. But I blamed myself. I brought you there. I put you in his way."

“Are we-” Michael starts, before cutting himself off. “Everyone’s acted like I should know you, so I’m wondering if you and I are-”

“No.” Alex cuts him off, shaking his head. “We’ve never really had the chance.”

“Why not?”

“I had some things I needed to handle first, before I was ready to be with you - or with anyone, really.”

“Are you ready now?”

Alex smiles, glancing down at him. “Maybe. But you aren’t.”

“Because of this?” Michael motions toward his head, waving his hand around a bit manically. “Because I can’t remember anything?”

Alex doesn’t answer right away, like he’s contemplating the best way to answer the question, like even now when Michael doesn’t remember anything about their relationship, or about Alex, he still needs to watch his words, that feeling of Alex still being on edge around him bleeding through.

“We’ll figure it out.”

Thinking about Alex's words, trying to fit them into what he does know, causes the headache to flare up again, forcing Michael to lean back against the rocks, closing his eyes. Alex goes quiet, but Michael is still very aware of his presence as he tries to bring the pounding in his skull back under control. He hears Alex shift somewhere off to his left, before his head is being lifted up and maneuvered just a bit until it's resting against Alex's legs. Before he can think too hard about it, Alex's fingers are buried in his hair, carefully working through the mess of curls.

Michael lets his mind go blank, doesn't think about Max in the pod, or Isobel's recent recklessness, or Liz's desperation to solve the mystery of bringing Max back to life, and he definitely doesn't think about Alex Manes stroking his hair in a way that feels like it should be familiar, like this isn't the first time he's done it. His mind pushes back, as if he should remember but doesn't, and his body relaxes in a way that it shouldn't with someone who is human, and a stranger.

Allowing himself to get lost in the feeling of fingers stroking through his hair, Michael tries to ignore as the ever persistent headache flares up again somewhere behind his eyes.

\----

**PART TWELVE**

**(Alex's POV)**

It’s a weekday night, and due to the early hour of the evening, the Wild Pony isn’t excessively crowded. Alex is sitting in a booth that gives him a good view of both the front door, and the bar. Maria’s already stopped by twice, handing off a bottle of beer to him, and giving him an update on her mom. He’s still working on piecing together what may have happened to Mimi, how her dementia came about, and he hates, absolutely hates, that it’s leaning more towards being alien-related.

“You know, when you said you had something to tell me, this really wasn’t where I thought we’d be talking.”

Alex shrugs as Kyle slides in across from him. “Maybe while we’re here we can get you laid. Two birds and all that.”

“Hilarious.”

It’s been a couple days since they’ve seen each other, Kyle busy with shifts at the hospital and his own assistance helping Liz with finding a way to bring Max back to life. Though there have been times Alex has arrived at the bunker to find remnants of Kyle, proof that he’d spent another sleepless night pouring over files. It’s not healthy, but Alex doesn’t dare call him out on it.

Pots and kettles, after all.

Alex waits while Kyle flags down a waitress, ordering himself something to drink. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate you finally taking me up on my offer to get a beer, but why do I get the feeling this isn’t just a hang out type situation?”

Alex has been agonizing over how to deal with what’s going on with Michael since finding him at the cave the other day. Talking had been easy, maybe easier than it’s ever been between them, and Alex hates that it’s now, as Michael has no memory of him, that Alex has become more comfortable opening up, with not letting the feeling that the walls are closing in on him stop him from speaking up, or leaving when the situation started to get uncomfortable. It had pained him to see the desperation to know what happened radiate off Michael as he tried to work out why Alex was what was missing from his memories. The entire situation made Alex feel at such a loss, not sure what to do except fill in the gaps, to listen and answer questions, while desperately hoping to find something, somewhere in the Project Shepherd files that would tell him what was wrong with Michael.

"Maybe it's better this way,” Alex says, because it’s all he’s been able to think about since that day in the caves. “Maybe it’s better if Michael doesn't know me."

“Whoa,” Kyle says, leaning forward. “What brought that on?”

"All we do is hurt each other, over and over. What if this - what if we're not supposed to fix it? What if this is how he moves on?"

Kyle glares at him. 

"I'm not gonna pretend to understand your feelings for Michael Guerin of all people, but I do know from over the months of us becoming friends again, that he is important to you."

Alex smirks. "Is that what we are? Friends?"

"Friends in progress?" Kyle laughs, shaking his head. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, Guerin went through the ringer in a short period of time, starting with Caulfield. If it's some latent alien ability brought on by that, then perhaps there’s a way to reverse it. Amnesia isn’t always permanent-”

“I ruined his life, Kyle. The least I can do-”

“Stop.” Kyle held up a hand, cutting Alex off. “You did not _ruin_ Guerin’s life.”

“You know I’m responsible for his hand, right?”

Alex knows that deep down, Michael doesn’t blame him for the events of that day, but it doesn’t erase the guilt that Alex lives with for being the reason Michael had been there in the first place.

“The broken one? The one Max healed?”

Alex nods. “My father took a hammer to it when we were seventeen.”

“Jesus, Alex!” Kyle’s outburst isn't a surprise, but Alex leans back as Kyle hit his palms on the table in frustration. “If your father did something, that’s on him, not you. Do you think I blame you for your dad shooting me in the chest?”

Of course not, Alex knows that.

“Okay,” Kyle presses on. “Because I’ve seen those stupid puppy dog eyes Guerin gets around you, remember? You need to stop beating yourself up."

Easier said than done. 

“I’m sure alien mind-wiping can have it’s uses, but this? Not one of them.”

Alex nods, turning his attention toward the bar, where he sees Maria leaning over the counter toward Jenna Cameron. He’s been worried since his initial talk with Maria about her feeling like she can’t be happy, like she can’t have something she wants. It’s a cruel twist of fate that Maria had ended up developing feelings for Michael of all people. He let her decide for herself what she wanted, and needed her to know that he wasn’t going to interfere in whatever decision she made, but at least they’d been able to talk first, clear the air.

What Alex doesn’t expect is to watch as Maria reaches out and takes Jenna’s hand in hers, squeezing it before letting go and walking away to tend to another patron. He can’t see Jenna’s face, but he knows Maria. And she has a certain way she acts when she’s doing palm readings. 

This isn’t it.

"I'll be right back," he says, sliding out of the booth, boots hitting the hardwood floor.

Alex slides into the empty bar stool next to Jenna, purposely bumping shoulders with her, and making her notice him sitting down.

"Manes," she says, quickly glancing around, as if expecting someone else.

"Cameron."

"How are the aliens?"

A couple months ago, Alex knows he would have reacted differently, would have glanced around wondering if anyone was nearby to overhear. These days, despite all the issues they're dealing with, he feels calmer, more relaxed. Not quite as ready to make a beeline for the exit at the first sign of an uncomfortable situation.

"Alex!"

He turns toward the bar, and toward Maria, who's joined them again, and lifts an eyebrow at her, questioning.

"Shit," Maria curses under her breath, glancing at Jenna, her expression softening just a fraction. 

Alex smiles, reaching out and taking Maria's hand in his own. He doesn't need the details, she doesn't have to tell him the why or the when or the how. Not if she doesn't want to talk about it.

Maria lets go of his hand, her head dropping in a laugh, before she picks up a dishrag and swats him on the shoulder with it, all smiles. Jenna hasn't said a word, just observing quietly with her drink in hand, and Alex wonders if it's because she knows of their friendship, to let them navigate this together first.

"I was moping over a dumb guy, and Jenna-" Maria pauses, glancing over at the woman in question, and there's a light in her eyes that Alex hasn't seen in a long time. "We just had some fun. She made me smile and laugh."

Alex moves to open his mouth but is beaten by Jenna.

"I did enjoy those things you did with your tongue," Jenna says with a wink.

It's so easy, like they've been doing it all along, and Jenna is staring back at Maria with the same fond look. She's radiant as she smiles back at Jenna, a laugh escaping her lips, and it's the most carefree sound Alex has heard from her in weeks.

"We just - I was feeling down on myself, and Jenna kept me company."

Alex nods, because he does understand. Probably more than most people.

"And Michael?" He inquires, carefully.

Maria sighs. "I like him. But I don't think I'm what he needs. I'm not sure _he_ knows what he needs, in fact."

She’s right, of course. It’d be great if Michael could focus on his own problems for once, deal with his own traumas, and let himself heal from everything that’s happened in the wake of Caulfield, and Noah, and Max. The easy solution, the one that it seems Michael had been trying to lean into, had been losing himself again in someone else's problems - as if his own weren't as important or worthy of paying attention to. The memory issue Michael is facing now makes things harder, and Alex knows he has to deal with that first, even if it means delaying resurrecting Max Evans a little while longer.

Alex is caught up in watching Maria, that he almost misses the piece of paper Jenna slides his way.

"Do you recognize this?"

It's a triad, three prongs jutting out from a center point. He's seen it in the Project Shepherd files, photographs of autopsies done on victims of the crash. He glances up at her, questioning.

"Wyatt Long drew it after he shot Grant Green, but didn't know what it was. And Max Evans has a tattoo on his shoulder of the same symbol."

"I'm assuming you've already asked Max about it?"

Jenna nods. "I did, except he said it was just something he drew as a kid."

Maria is staring at the piece of paper, recognition flashing across her face.

"I know that- Mom's drawn it."

Alex isn't expecting that, though he is appreciative of Rosa deciding to tell Maria about aliens. "Mimi drew this?"

Maria nods. "I always thought it was a doodle of some sort. _I_ drew it after the - after the incident at the gala. But I just thought it was because I'd seen it from mom."

Alex looks between Maria and Jenna for a moment, wondering just how much he can talk about Project Shepherd here in the middle of the Wild Pony - or in fact, how much Maria even knows about it since they haven’t had much chance to discuss it yet.

"To answer your question, yes I’ve seen it.”

Jenna rolls her eyes. "Great. More alien mysteries."

Before any of them can say another word, Kyle is slapping a hand on his back, squeezing himself into the space between him and Jenna.

"Not to interrupt this, but I didn't expect to be drinking alone when you said _I'll be right back_."

"Sorry, Kyle. We got talking and-"

"Hey, I know that symbol," Kyle interrupts, staring at the piece of paper in front of Jenna. "Connor drew it after the incident at the hospital. His attending thought it was weird, and clipped it into his file for when the psychologist did an evaluation. What is it?"

One of the other bartenders walks by, stopping to grab something from near where Maria is standing, and Jenna leans back, grabbing the slip of paper with the symbol and stuffing it into the pocket of her jacket. 

“I think we need to _not_ be having this conversation in the middle of the Wild Pony.”


	7. Parts 13 & 14

**PART THIRTEEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

Max Evans' house is quiet when Alex pulls up, but it's late, nearly midnight. He'd texted Liz from the Wild Pony, making sure she was still awake, unsurprised when she'd immediately replied inviting him over.

Rosa is asleep on the couch, a blanket tucked under her chin, and a fire burning low in the fireplace. There's a light on in the kitchen - the stove light - so it's not completely dark in the main room. Alex walks past the couch and down the hallway to the spare room where he finds Liz sitting at the desk, notebook in front of her, a mostly empty bottle of wine next to it.

"Liz?"

"Hey," she says, voice quiet. "Shut the door so we don't wake Rosa."

Alex complies, and slides onto an empty bench across the table. He tries, and fails, to not think about how this is probably where Michael sits during their brainstorming sessions.

“How is she doing?”

Liz smiles. “As well as can be expected. Kyle’s helped, and Maria knowing - it means she’s not isolated here at Max’s house.”

Alex slides a piece of paper toward her, the mysterious triad symbol scribbled out in black sharpie. “Have you seen this before?” 

“It’s Max’s tattoo.”

“Does he know what it means?” Liz shakes her head at the question, but Alex had been expecting that. 

"All he's said is it's some doodle he used to make as a kid."

Alex shakes his head. "I think it's more than that. Jenna told me Wyatt drew it after being possessed by Noah, and Kyle confirmed the same thing about Conor after the hospital shooting."

"But they were controlled by Noah and Max hasn't-"

"No, he hasn't. But I found video footage in the Project Shepherd files, an autopsy performed after the crash, of a woman who had that symbol branded onto her hand." Alex takes a breath, thinking of the conversation at the Wild Pony. "And Maria said she'd seen Mimi draw it before."

"Mimi - do you think-"

"It's possible." Alex knows they're talking about the same thing, both thinking about Maria and Mimi's dementia that's been undiagnosable. The discovery of Noah using Ranchero Night at the Wild Pony to target victims, in addition to having no qualms about drugging Maria in an attempt to stay one step ahead meant it also made sense if Noah had done something similar to Mimi once. If she had possibly seen him leave, amd tried to stop him. If she'd started to put the pieces together about the murders.

"Okay, so what about Max? Noah was still in the pod-"

"I don’t know, but could it be related to why they have no memories from before the pods."

Liz paused, staring at him like he'd just said something surprising. But Alex wasn't in the mood to rehash his discussion with Michael, of all the things Michael had told him about being in the system, about being separated from Max and Isobel, about how hard Michael worked to protect them from the things he went through - how relieved he'd been to know they had the easier time here. It’s made Alex wonder how different things could have been for Michael if maybe he’d had those memories of before, of knowing he had a mother out there somewhere, instead of just endless searching and hoping.

"So then it’s entirely possible it’s an ability they have."

The question now became when did Noah get to Mimi, and what happened that caused him to try and erase her memories at all. If it was Ranchero Night, and Noah's access to potential targets that caused him to target Maria then-

"What if Mimi tried to stop him? Because of Ranchero Night?"

Liz moves, grabbing her notebook, and flipping to a clean piece of paper.

"That makes sense - if Mimi caught him, he would have tried to cover his tracks somehow. Like he did with Maria." Alex watches Liz scribble something down. "But what if it backfired? Because of Mimi's psychic abilities?"

"Like how she has those moments of lucidity?"

Liz nods. It feels good to work with her to try and figure out what's going on, and it feels even better that they're getting closer to figuring out what may be wrong with Michael as well. Of course, it still feels like they’re missing pieces, though ever since _aliens_ entered his life, it’s felt like he’s just constantly scrambling to stay one step ahead.

Alex shifts topics instead of dwelling on what they _don’t_ know.

"How goes the research for Max?"

"I've got the hypothetical," she begins, tapping away at her laptop for a moment before turning and looking at him. "If you want to hear it?"

"Of course."

It's fascinating to sit and listen to Liz talk science and the discoveries she's made on the alien physiology based on the information Alex has provided her from the Project Shepherd files - he hates everything his family has done to a people who appeared to only have been coming here to escape some sort of oppression, but at least some of the research is getting put to better use.

It’s more than an hour later when he’s finally pulling the guest room door closed behind him, leaving Liz to her work, and carefully attempting to make his way back to the front door to leave. He almost misses Rosa holding her hand out, fingers snagging on the hem of his jacket.

“Hey, punk. Not even gonna say hi?”

Alex walks around, sliding onto the empty space on the couch next to her, leaning back against the arm to face her. She’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over her head, making her look every bit the nineteen year old she is.

“Aliens,” Rosa says, grinning, and Alex can’t help but smile back at her.

“That’s what I hear.”

She stares at him, waiting for him to say something else, but Alex doesn’t budge.

“Stubborn as always,” she laughs. "This is a little weird for you, isn't it?"

He smiles. "Just a bit."

"So tell me what the hell you're still doing here. Because as of June 2008, you had a plan to leave and never come back."

Alex remembers the plan. He was going to go with Liz on her road trip, end up in LA so that he could continue making music, and completely separate himself from his dad and the Manes family legacy. Then the shed had happened, and Rosa dying, and Alex remembers saying goodbye to Liz the day she packed up the car not even a week later, teary eyed and claiming she had to _go_. Alex had stayed until the end of the summer before reporting to basic training, alternating his remaining time in Roswell between Maria and Michael.

"I met a boy," Alex teases, and Rosa swats at him, laughing.

"What did happen with you and Michael Guerin? The last thing I remember was getting a text that he'd kissed you in the museum."

"I made a mistake." It's the truth, mostly. He'd tried to give Michael somewhere to go, somewhere out of the chill of night, and he'd ended up causing more harm than good.

"What? Why? Do I have to go beat his ass?"

"No, no." He thinks about how good it feels to talk to Rosa again, how easy it is to fall back into something familiar with her. And the visual of her trying to spar with Guerin is an amusing thought. "My joining the Air Force did complicate things."

Rosa's face is solemn at his confession. "Yeah, Liz told me. What the hell made you do that for? Our whole lives you swore you never wanted to-"

"Things changed. _I_ changed." It's late, and the last thing he wants to do is get into rehashing the entire history of the past ten years. He takes a deep breath before continuing. "I don't regret the decision now, not entirely. But did I tell you I outrank my father?"

"Finally, good news!"

"My honorable discharge is in a couple months, and yet I still don't know what I'm going to do afterwards."

Rosa raises her eyebrows, challenging him. "How about _finally getting the fuck out of this town_?"

He hates how simple she makes it seem, but it reminds him of who he was at seventeen. Back when he'd fallen in love with a boy who looked at him like he was worth all the kindness and affection in the world. There's a small voice in the back of his head telling him to stay in the Air Force, that he can do more good if he's working from within. But now that he's been back, he wants to fix things with Michael, and see if they could really be something together. Forgoing his honorable discharge and staying in feels like slamming that door closed between them again.

And now that he's back, that he's been back in Roswell for months, now that Liz is here, and Rosa is alive, and Maria is clearly struggling with Mimi, Alex doesn't want to leave. They are, and have always been, his family. It feels more akin to running away if he makes that decision again now.

\----

**PART FOURTEEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

“So what _is_ the plan?” Kyle asks from where he’s sitting at the kitchen counter next to Liz.

It had been Liz’s idea to see if Isobel’s influencing ability could be used to go inside Michael’s mind, and somehow pull the missing memories back out. It was all a guessing game, they didn’t really even know if the memories still existed, or if they were gone forever. Alex felt like he was holding on to the last bit of hope that his history with Michael wasn’t lost forever, particularly after their conversation in the pod cave.

Isobel rolls her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m going to go into Michael’s mind, and see if I can figure out what’s going on.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Once or twice,” she admitted, and Alex knew it was probably from that chaos Michael had spoken about when they were younger.

“What makes you think you can do it now?” Alex doesn’t mean for the question to come off that harsh, but he’s aware of Isobel’s previous forays into Liz’s mind, as well as Maria’s, and the setbacks have occurred each time.

He watches her square her shoulders, glancing over at Michael, who’s leaning against the spiral staircase, black cowboy hat still planted firmly on his head.

“Because you’re going to go in with me.”

Alex’s gaze snaps from Isobel over to Michael, because he had to have agreed to this for it even be an option now. He watches as Michael shrugs his shoulders, just the tiniest bit, resigned to whatever happens happening.

“We already tried it alone. Didn’t seem to take.”

Isobel sighs. “When we get in there, I need you to think of a memory of the two of you, something strong. Emotional, even.”

Alex nods, understanding. If Michael had been as closed off about their relationship as Alex has been, it would make sense that Isobel hadn’t known what to look for, or how to pull the memories back out - if they even still existed. Though Alex has no idea what to expect from Isobel’s abilities, at the very least it’s not his mind they’re entering and looking to manipulate. The idea of her seeing a moment from between the two of him, however, still sets him slightly on edge, even if it means getting Michael back.

“You’re not going to be able to lie in there,” Isobel announces, as Michael walks around and takes a seat on the sofa. “It’s just how the mindscape works.”

Alex isn’t particularly concerned about that, though he feels a slight bit of panic at the idea that he’ll have to choose his words carefully. The problem is, he still has no idea what to expect from any of this, if that’s even going to be possible. What truths might he accidentally blurt out when he’s not able to control what he says?

Isobel falls onto the couch next to Michael, leaving the space next to her open. Just as he’s moving to sit down, Michael shakes his head, stopping him.

“No, that’s not gonna work,” Michael sighs, pushing up off the couch and taking a seat on the coffee table, so he’s facing Isobel. 

“What’s not going to work?” Alex asks, sitting down in the empty space on the sofa.

Michael doesn’t answer, and no answer is forthcoming from Isobel, but it becomes more clear seconds later when Isobel takes his hand, pulling it into her lap, and resting their hands on her thigh. After a moment, Michael slips his hand into Alex’s, linking their fingers together. Alex watches as Isobel takes Michael’s hand the same way she’d taken Alex’s, and closes her eyes. He follows suit, shutting out the light of Isobel’s living room, and focuses on the feeling of Michael’s familiar, calloused hand in his own.

For all the talk of chaos, the mindscape is quiet when Alex opens his eyes. Isobel is sitting next to him, and Michael is sitting across from them, his gaze focused on Alex. 

“It’s so quiet,” Isobel remarks in wonder, as though seeing it for the first time before looking around for a moment and focusing on Alex. “Think of that memory I told you about.”

Alex closes his eyes, and thinks of Caulfield, of those moments with the alarm blaring overhead. Remembers his own words, screaming and desperate to get Michael out alive, needing him to not die in that place, needing to know that he was just as much Michael’s family as the people stuck behind those cell doors. He sees it play through his mind as clear as that day, can feel the tears fall down his cheek, can feel Michael’s fingers gripping the fabric of his jacket, their foreheads pressed together. He lets his own desperation flow through the memory, that singular need to either get Michael to leave with him, or die in that building together. 

It ends abruptly, and Alex blinks his eyes open - they’re back in Isobel’s living room, but still in the mindscape. Michael is watching him, staring at him, and Alex can see how hard the memory he’s just been shown has hit him.

“You-”

“Yes,” Alex replies before Michael can get the words out, knowing he’s going to ask about _I don’t look away, Guerin_ , and _You are mine_. 

“Can you show me-”

Alex nods, and closes his eyes, thinking of that day in the shed when they were seventeen years old. Remembers the feeling of Michael’s hands on him, fingers playing with the hair at the back of his neck, Michael’s thumb hooked through the belt loop of his pants, fingers pushed under his t-shirt, teasing the skin there. He feels Michael’s lips on his own, needy and desperate, their foreheads pressed together as they breathe into the space between kisses. Stares at seventeen year old Michael as he says those words that changed everything. 

_Not with someone that I’ve liked. As much as I like you_.

This time, Alex ends it, pulling them out of the memory with a gasp, because of what happens after. Doesn’t want to add that to what they’re trying to do here. No one needs to replay that memory now, even though too often during the past ten years, when Alex has closed his eyes, he's had to relive that moment in the shed when his father had taken the hammer to Michael's hand, over and over and over again.

What he doesn't expect when he opens his eyes again, is to be staring at himself. He's standing in Michael's bunker, the one below the Airstream, the glow of the console illuminating him. But it's not his feelings rolling through him as he speaks, as he stutters his way through _You're thinking about leaving - the planet_. The resignation, the love, the fear, the acceptance - it all belongs to Michael.

Alex knows he didn't leave that day with the intention of pushing them further apart - there was a storm rolling in, and he'd been caught off guard by everything Michael had once again told him. Including the biggest gut punch of them all, when Michael had looked at him earlier, his face open and honest, and replied, _If anyone's gonna destroy me, might as well be you_. Alex hated the idea that Michael was admitting that to him. But it was true. Because that's what Michael was to him. Even Hunter had known it.

The mindscape shifts, and they're back in Isobel's living room, but it's just the three of them. And Michael is staring at him, like he's trying to work out a puzzle from the memories.

"You _said_ you were tired of walking away."

"I did. And I meant it."

"But you still-"

"You had just showed me the console. Your plans for _leaving_. I wanted to start over, I wanted to get to know you like we never were able to, and you showed me that."

"I'm tired of secrets, Alex. I showed you because I'm tired of not being able to tell you things."

Alex takes a deep breath, never looking away from Michael. "I can't lie in here, right? So believe me when I say, I am done walking away."

"How do I trust you though?"

There's so much sadness to his voice, and it rips through Alex to know that he's taken all those years of Michael not being chosen, of being left behind, of not being good enough, and perhaps made it worse.

What he doesn’t expect is to open his eyes back in Isobel’s living room where they started - Kyle and Liz sitting at the counter where they’d been earlier, only now they’ve switched positions. Michael is staring at him, and there’s no mistaking the tears in his eyes. It makes Alex want to reach forward, to wipe them away with his thumb, but most of all, he wants to know what Michael is thinking.

And most importantly, did it work?

“Michael?” Isobel asks, finding her voice first, Alex almost forgetting she had seen everything. He doesn’t get a chance to be embarrassed at the idea of her being there, because Michael is dropping both his hand and Isobel’s, and fleeing the room without another look.

Alex flinches at the sound of the front door slamming shut.

“Did it - did it work?” Kyle unhelpfully calls over from the kitchen.


	8. Parts 15 & 16

**PART FIFTEEN**

**(Michael's POV)**

Maybe it had been a terrible idea.

Feeling Alex's emotions during those moments in their shared history had ripped through Michael. It was never that he didn't believe Alex loved him, love had never been the issue. It was that, in ten years, love had never seemed to be enough. Each time, Alex would leave. Each time, Alex would find some reason to put space and distance back between them. Alex had shared with him once, how his dream for after high school had included becoming a musician, to write his own songs. But in the end, Alex had still chosen to do what was expected of him, had still followed along in the footsteps of the Manes men that came before him.

But why did Alex do it for so many years? How had he felt that way about him, and still kept making that decision to leave? Michael still couldn’t understand it, even now. Even if Alex had promised him, how could he trust him? And what were they, where did that leave them? Friends?

He didn't want to be Alex's friend. He's never wanted that.

He'd opened his eyes back in reality, back in Isobel's living room, had taken one look at Alex, and unable to stop the tears from forming, had bolted from the house.

In the safety of his truck, he finally looks down at his left hand, his _healed hand_. The one Max had grabbed the night in the caves and decided to heal, had told Michael to stop looking back and start looking forward. With a grunt of annoyance, Michael reached into the glove compartment and found a black rag to wrap around the offending appendage.

Fuck Max, and fuck his insistence that Michael was living in the past.

It was the middle of the afternoon, so the Pony was quiet as Michael pushed his way through the front door. A couple of the usual suspects were already present, some milling around the pool tables, others slumped over on a stool at the bar. Maria was leaning against the bar, looking at something on her phone as Michael dropped into the seat closest to her.

"Hey DeLuca."

He watched as she slid her phone into the pocket of her pants and turned to face him.

"Nuh uh, don't _hey DeLuca_ me." He watches her eyes narrow, before she's putting her hand out to stop one of the employees from dropping a shot glass in front of him. "What the fuck is going on with you?"

"Sorry about that-"

"I just-" Maria glanced around quickly before dropping her voice. "I just found out that _aliens_ exist, and that not one but _two_ of my best friends have been resurrected by one, not to mention that it might also be tied to whatever is wrong with my mother. So don't _hey DeLuca_ me like this is no big deal."

"I didn't say-"

"Listen, Guerin. I like you. I like you a stupid amount." She paused, and Michael really wished he could reach over the bar and grab the bottle of tequila that was just out of reach. "But I don't think I'm what you need right now."

"Don't tell me what-"

"Stop," she snapped, holding up a hand. "What you need and what you _think_ you need right now are two very different things. We've all gone through hell the past couple weeks, and I'm here, I'll always be here for you _as a friend_. Because I think you need that more than you need whatever you and I could have been together."

Michael doesn't say anything, just lets the silence fall between them. He'd come to the Pony, to Maria, with the idea that she meant normal. A normal that he'd watched Max and Isobel embrace for twenty years. A normal he'd scoffed at, mocked, and rolled his eyes at. And when he'd finally embraced it, when he'd finally decided that maybe it was worth it to give it a shot, something inside him had malfunctioned, and shut down.

Normal clearly was never going to be in the cards for him.

But if so, where did he fit in then? According to Noah, there wasn't a _home_ for him to go back to even if he could eventually figure out the mechanics of building a functioning spaceship. His backup plans, everything he'd worked on since he came out of the pod, was essentially worthless - what's the point of a spaceship if you don't have anywhere to go? What happens when the home and family you've spent your life searching for doesn't exist?

"I do like you, DeLuca."

Maria smiled at him, and Michael wanted to lean in towards her, feel her skin beneath his fingertips, but he stayed put. 

"I know you do, Guerin."

With a quick squeeze of his hand, he watches as she walks around to the other side of the bar, finally dropping a glass in front of him and pouring a shot of tequila.

He downs it, staring at the empty glass for a moment, debating how much to tell her before deciding to throw caution to the wind.

"Ya know, it worked."

Maria glares at him. "What worked?"

"Fixing whatever I did to myself."

She laughs, and he watches as she pours herself another shot before downing the contents, and turning to face him.

"What's so funny, DeLuca?"

"I've been struggling, for years, to find out what's wrong with my mom. You lose your memories of Alex for a couple weeks, and it's just - it's like it never happened."

Michael scoffs at the implication that _nothing happened_ . He now knows _exactly_ what Alex was feeling and thinking at Caulfield, and still chose to leave all those times, and he doesn't quite know what to do with that information yet. Part of him, some dumb rational section of his brain surely, says they should talk about it. But hadn't they tried that? And yet here they were, still right back where they started.

"He loves you," she continues, voice quiet. "From the moment he found out, it's like all he did was try to figure out how to help you. It's why us, together, is never going to work.

"And you're okay with that?"

"Maybe in another lifetime, we could have been great." She pauses, grabbing a bottle of whiskey from behind the counter, and pouring herself a glass.

There might not be a _them_ , but maybe he can talk to Liz and Isobel about trying to figure out what's wrong with her mother.

\----

**PART SIXTEEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

Inside an envelope, tucked in between pages of a hardcover journal, is a picture. It’s edges are worn, the corners dog-eared and missing. It’s been folded in half twice, the lines intersecting in the middle of the photograph, and there are days Alex worries it will fall apart. There’s a scanned copy of it, framed and sitting on his desk in the corner of the bedroom - he’d tried, resisted doing so for months after returning back to Roswell. But in the end, after he’d called Michael a _criminal_ , had pushed him away again, he’d broken down, had realized he didn’t want to ever lose the photo, even with all its imperfections now, remnants of how often he’s looked at it, reminders of how far it’s traveled with him.

The photo is the two of them, standing in the middle of the desert, young and carefree, and happy. Michael has a guitar resting on the ground, Alex focused on a chord progression. Michael in his backwards baseball cap - Alex remembers teasing him about, telling him that maybe he shouldn’t be copying Max Evans’ signature look. Alex, in his all black attire, black nails, and chain wallet - ever the emo goth teenager in the midst of a rebellious phase. He stares at his seventeen year old self, and briefly thinks about what it would be like to paint his nails again, to slide the rings back onto his fingers.

His armor back when all he had was clothes and jewelry.

But what has always made something tighten in Alex’s chest when he looks at the photo is the way Michael is watching him - like it doesn’t matter that someone is taking their picture, it didn’t matter they weren’t alone out there in the desert. It’s been ten years, and Michael has looked at him the same way every single time they’re together - whether it’s been in public or in private. Whether it was at the reunion or standing in the middle of the junkyard that day Alex had finally gotten the courage to say what he needed - what he wanted - to say. 

They’d been out in the middle of the desert for Senior Skip Day. It was a week before Rosa would die, before Liz would leave, before the shed and it’s aftermath. Back in the weird days between when Alex had leaned in to kiss Michael, and when Michael had really kissed him at the UFO Emporium. Rosa had stolen Alex’s camera, a basic little point and shoot, and snapped the photo of the two of them. At the time, she was the only one Alex had told everything to - mostly because she’d been nosy and observant, but she’d promised not to say anything to Liz or Maria unless Alex was okay with it. In those in between days, he was sure Michael hadn’t felt the same, no matter how often Rosa told him he was wrong. It wasn’t until weeks later, only days before he was to leave for basic, that he got the film developed and saw the picture Rosa had taken.

He'd immediately gone back and had a second copy printed. The summer hadn't been easy, for either of them, but Alex had tried to make it good for those last couple weeks they had together. He spent too much time fussing over Michael's hand - they never directly talked about it, about that day and what happened - but Alex couldn't stop himself from helping Michael with the bandages, always obsessing over how much it must hurt. When Michael had told him the reason he'd not gone to the hospital, _I'm a kid who aged out of the system who lives outta his truck, Alex, I don't have money for a doctor_ , Alex had accepted it, and stopped pushing - but he never stopped worrying.

The day before he was to leave, Alex had tracked Michael down to the junkyard, helping old man Sanders out. Michael had sat on the tailgate of his truck, and Alex had held out the photo, silently begging Michael to take it. He didn't allow himself to think about how he might not come back, because that was unthinkable - but he wanted Michael to have something of them. Alex's own picture at the time didn't come to basic, not with Don't Ask Don't Tell in place. Instead it was slipped inside a box of things - notebooks, pictures, some of his favorite rings and necklaces - that he didn't want his father to find, and he'd given it to Maria for safekeeping. 

They'd driven Michael's truck out to a spot in the desert, to that spot near the caves that Alex had only recently learned was because the pods were nearby. A scratchy wool blanket stretched out over the back of the truck, and no one around for miles, Alex had taken Michael apart, tears in his eyes as he pressed lips to skin, and memorized the body of this boy he _loved_. After, he lay cradled in Michael's arms, and Alex wondered how he was ever supposed to want to leave, when nothing in his life had ever felt as good, he'd never felt as safe and cherished in his life, as he did when he was with Michael. Being with Michael Guerin felt as easy as breathing - it was everyone else in the world that was the problem. He'd absently played with Michael's curls, knowing it would be the last time for months he could touch them, feel the silky soft strands, and fell asleep with his nose pressed into the skin of Michael's neck.

He'd left the next day wondering if it was crazy to fall in love at seventeen, to believe that Michael Guerin was it for him. So he tried to forget, thinking he'd find someone who didn't care about a quick tangle in the sheets, someone who didn't have curly brown hair, and big round hazel eyes, and he'd try to convince himself that he could get over Michael. It never worked. Each time he returned to Roswell, each time his leave was long enough between tours to justify heading back to the States, Alex would find himself back in his hometown, once again taking a ride out into the desert, the only privacy they could find. 

Alex finds it ironic that the last time he'd been in Roswell before the tour that took his right leg from him, they'd fought. He doesn't remember any specifics now, but it was a tired old argument about the Air Force, about Alex not going AWOL, about them. And it ended with them crashing together, lips meeting in hurried, desperate kisses, hands uncoordinated and moving too quickly and without focus, desperate to just _feel_ . Alex had laid flat on the truck bed, and hadn't taken his eyes off Michael. It wasn't the first time they'd fucked like this, but something felt different, and it had overwhelmed him, causing Alex to wrap his arms around Michael, needing to feel their bodies pressed together as close as possible, like a goodbye of sorts. Afterward, they fell asleep, a tangle of limbs, Alex curled into Michael's side, the only place that truly felt like _home_.

It was how they worked, and it always ended the same too, before Alex returned to base. Each time was a tired, repetitive argument, words he knew neither of them truly meant deep down. But sometimes, it made the leaving easier.

_"Guess you're still the guy looking for any excuse to walk away."_

_"Maybe. And you're still so good at giving them to me."_

Never easy though. Leaving Michael broke Alex's heart each and every time, and Alex was sure a piece always stayed there, back in Roswell, back with Michael.

Alex stares at the picture in his hand, and in the privacy of the cabin, mourns the life they didn't get to have. When he was on the other side of the world, he used to wonder about parallel universes, if they existed, and if so, was there one out there where they were happy. Where Jesse Manes didn't hate his child, where Michael had never lost the use of his hand, where Alex had never joined the Air Force, and Michael had never grown up homeless. Where Alex had gone to school for music, and Michael had gone for aerospace engineering, and they were _happy_.

Carefully, he slides the photograph back into the envelope, and closes the journal, returning it to drawer of his bedside table. His phone chimes with a new text message, and Alex picks it up off the table, staring at the illuminated screen.

**From Maria** _: Guerin's here._

He wants to throw his phone, smash it into pieces, but instead flips it back over as he returns it to the table. He reminds himself he can't make Michael choose him, memories or no memories. He can't make Michael want to be with him.

But it doesn't make it hurt any less.


	9. Parts 17 & 18

**PART SEVENTEEN**

**(Michael's POV)**

Two days later, it feels like a breakthrough. Michael is napping on the sofa in the living room at Max's house, waiting to see if the latest sample remains stable, when a crash comes from in the direction of the guest bedroom, followed by a yell from Liz.

"Liz?"

He feels groggy, but stumbles to the doorway to find her staring at the microscope, hands over her mouth.

"Liz?" He tries again.

Slowly, she turns to him, her hands falling away, and Michael sees the smile on her face. As he takes the few steps closer, he notices the tears in her eyes. 

"I figured it out, Michael." Her voice is small and quiet, like if she speaks at a normal volume, it will shatter the illusion. "We can bring Max back."

Six months ago, Michael hadn't understood - hadn't _wanted_ to understand the depth of the feelings Max and Liz felt for each other. He'd mistakenly gone along with Isobel, believing that neither of them were serious about the other, that they were just a high school crush that would be forgotten about. He'd never allowed himself to view what Liz and Max shared the same way he looked at the _connection_ he had with Alex. Especially not until that day Max has thrown Alex in his face, _what if it had been Alex Manes_. Because it had been that one question that had made Michael realize how wrong he'd been. He'd wanted to tell Alex the truth for ten years, never had a second thought about how Alex would react because he knew he loved him. Michael just hadn't allowed himself before then to ever consider that Max looked at Liz the same way.

"It's too late now," she says, stepping back out of his arms."We can in the morning. We can get Isobel and-"

"Liz." It's not late and Michael doesn't believe for a second there's such a thing as a _wrong time_ to bring Max back to life. "What's wrong?"

"I'm furious at him. I want him back, but I'm-"

"You're allowed to be angry for what he did."

"It feels wrong. I mean, he sacrificed himself to give me _Rosa_ back."

Michael shrugs, thinking of letting Isobel believe he was a murderer for ten years. Thinking of a snap decision at seventeen years old to put himself between a boy and his abusive father. "We all do crazy things for the people we love."

He watches Liz bat away the tears from her eyes, before she's reaching out and taking his left hand in hers.

"Like this?"

He doesn't answer. Partly because he doesn't know how. It's been ten years where he's been comfortable lying about his hand, how it was broken, spinning tales of a bar fight, a junkyard accident, and in one of his more colorful moments - an encounter with a chupacabra. 

"It goes both ways, Mikey. If you want to talk-"

"Yeah."

"Alex told me a little bit-"

Michael pulled his hand out of her grasp, and took a step back a step closer to the door.

"Of course he did."

It was never his sexuality, and people finding out he was bisexual, that he'd ever had a problem with. He was a freaking _alien,_ why should the outdated binaries of human sexuality even apply to him? No, what had angered him in the weeks since was that Alex seemed to have taken it upon himself to slowly dictate who knew about the existence of their relationship. But all Michael could think about was that morning in the Airstream over the summer, that one time Alex had bothered to even stay the night, that Michael finally got a taste of what it was like to wake up in the same bed with him, and instead had been met with Alex's look of pure panic at the thought of Isobel finding out he was there. Then the drive-in had happened, and Alex saying he wanted to sit and watch from the back of Michael's truck, but disappearing halfway through the movie before they ended up falling back into their old ways - yelling at each other, and Alex walking away. He'd been caught off guard later, after Texas, when Maria had apparently found out and suddenly didn't want anything to do with him - the only person who could have told her was Alex. He'd still been reeling that day from Alex showing up, watching him strain to get the words out like every other single time, before leaving like he always did, always coming and going, leaving Michael alone in the end. It's why he hadn't believed Alex at Caulfield, ready to sacrifice himself for Michael, refusing to leave a building ready to explode, and all Michael could think was that Alex deserved better. If he died in that holding area amidst his own people, no one would miss him, but Alex had a family, he had friends, he had an entire life out there waiting for him. 

He was just so tired.

"We can do this tomorrow," Michael adds, noting how much Liz has been pushing herself these days. "One more day in the pod isn't gonna matter-"

Liz nods. "You're right. We can get Isobel too. She should be there."

Silence falls between them as Michael glances around the room, taking in the research and lab equipment scattered about. All the time he and Liz have spent here over the past couple weeks, combing through the limited information they had on their alien biology, and trying to find a way to bring Max back. He hasn't thought too hard, too deep about all the information they've acquired, and where it's come from, finally letting it all settle in his mind now.

Alex and his family's alien hunting legacy.

"You should talk to him, you know."

Michael frowns, because Liz is not reading his mind. "Who?"

"Alex."

He scoffs a bit at the idea, the last time they'd sat and talked, the last time they'd bared secrets and truths to each other, Alex had still walked away. Did it really matter that he had said he wanted to be friends then? And what did that even mean?

They'd never been friends. He and Alex were never going to be able to be friends. Even with Alex's words in the dreamscape, that promise to not leave, what proof did Michael even have that it wasn't just empty words? People had been saying one thing, and doing another, his entire life.

After twenty years on this planet, Michael's used to disappointment.

\----

**PART EIGHTEEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

The day that Liz and Michael decide to bring Max out of the pod, Alex goes to the Pony. It's the early afternoon, and quiet. He finds Maria sitting at the bartop, a bottle of whiskey in front of her.

"Isn't it a little early for that?"

Their eyes meet in the glass, and she gives him a sad, resigned smile. 

"We're uh, Isobel offered to, that mind thing to mom." Maria finishes off the contents of the glass in front of her. "See if what they did to Guerin will work with her."

The logic makes sense if it's alien related. It's very likely Mimi's memories still exist somewhere inside her brain, like Michael's. The problem is that flicker of hope that Alex knows Maria has been holding onto for years now. Mimi is the most important person in the world to her, and he knows it's going to be devastating for Maria when she loses her mom.

"Do you want me to-?"

Maria shakes her head. "Liz will be there. I mean, if you want - I just, I didn't want to assume."

"Maria?" He doesn't like the idea that there is still that rift between them, like they haven't been friends since they were toddlers and eating glue before they'd known better. "If you want me there, I'm there."

She turns to him, and he can see the absolute relief written on her face. They've been good, he thought they'd been doing better recently, less awkwardness because of Guerin these days, more back to their old familiarity. It's comforting, even, that they're moving past this hurdle, because Alex doesn't like not having her to talk to.

"Thank you."

What has made everything harder these days is the lack of any information that could help explain Mimi's dementia and memory issues. Alex has spent so much of his free time cataloging the information from the Caulfield hard drives, as well as the information from Project Shepherd, and he's come up empty. It's frustrating, because based on an inability for doctors to confirm an actual medical condition, it appears to be alien-based.

He hopes that Isobel's walk into Mimi's mind yields better results.

"She's all I've got," Maria whispers, her voice cracking. "If I lose her, if she forgets who I am-"

"We'll figure it out," he replies, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close. "You're not going to lose her."

Wiping at her eyes, she pulls back to look at him. "What are you doing here in the middle of the day, anyway?"

"I haven't seen you in a couple days, I let myself get tied up with research-" Alex cuts himself off. Maria doesn't need to hear about anything related to seventy years of alien torture and experimentation. "I know I've kinda been avoiding town."

"Have you talked to Guerin?"

Ah yes, the crux of his problems. He doesn't know how to approach the situation they've found themselves in now. It has hurt, and it still hurts, to know that something made Michael forget him. He doesn't pretend to fully understand the alien's abilities, but it's hard to look past that something had triggered Michael to specifically forget him. And when they'd come out of the dreamscape with Isobel, Michael hadn't looked at him with relief. He'd looked-

Alex would put it as the same look that morning Michael had asked him to leave.

"I'll take that silence as a no." Maria sighs, turning towards him "What about him scares you?"

"Maria-"

"Don't _Maria_ me," she replies, smiling. "I know this is a little awkward, but come on. I'm not gonna judge."

He lets out a deep breath to settle himself. It's good the bar is mostly empty, because otherwise he'd drag her into the back before even thinking about having this discussion. Alex clocks one other employee working, so at least Maria doesn't have to get interrupted, which helps calm his own anxiety about someone overhearing them.

"What if it's too late? And I just pushed him away one too many times?" He's not sure it feels good to ask the questions out loud that he knows need to be said, but there's something about being able to talk to Maria again that always makes him feel better. Makes him think about what it would have been like to have been able to tell her all those years ago it had actually been Michael Guerin who kissed him in the museum, instead of living in that fear of his father finding out. He's always been terrified of the idea of putting Michael in danger again. "What if he forgot me because he wants to move on, and I won't let him?"

It's silent between them, Maria staring at him, eyes wide in recognition, and he shakes his head at her, trying to downplay the words he's just spoken. Because it's been his biggest fear, since the moment he'd learned it was him Michael had forgotten, that maybe there was a reason it was him. That maybe his actions, the pattern he'd established between them of always leaving, had done more harm to Michael than he'd realized.

"Do you think that's why, that morning-" Maria starts, awkwardly trying to address the elephant in the room that Alex is pretty sure at this point both of them would like to move past. 

"Maybe? He'd been through a lot, and if he likes you then he should be allowed to-"

Maria holds up her hand, her back straightening as she turns to look at him. "Hey, I'm gonna stop you right there. _I_ put the breaks on me and him. There's too much he needs to deal with, and I just - am I selfish for being more concerned about my mom?"

Alex shakes his head, because that's a truly ridiculous notion for Maria to even be considering.

"You know what I like about Jenna?" Maria continues after a moment, filling her glass and this time, instead of drinking from it herself, she slides it toward Alex. "She makes me smile. She makes me laugh. I don't know what's going to happen between us because of her leaving to be closer to her sister, but I do know that I like being around her. And Guerin made me feel that way too, but I think I'd rather see if he can figure himself out first."

It reminds Alex that he's got some phone calls to put out regarding Jenna, but listening to Maria also has him thinking about why he loves Michael. What he loves about Michael, how it makes him want to be able to continue to get to know Michael. Maria's mention of being _wanted_ sticks in Alex's mind, calling back to their talk that day in the junkyard when Michael had recounted his time in the system, about Max and Isobel being adopted, and why at seventeen he'd found it more favorable to live out of his truck than with whatever foster home he'd been assigned.


	10. Parts 19 & 20

**PART NINETEEN**

**(Alex's POV)**

Two days after Max Evans is brought out of the pods, Isobel Evans sits down across from Mimi DeLuca in the living room of Maria's apartment, and attempts to find out what happened to her. Maria sits on the sofa next to her mother, holding both Isobel's hand and her mother's.

Alex sits on the window seat that looks out over Main Street. It's the middle of the day, but the sun is out. There are people walking down the sidewalk, and cars driving past. 

Once the three of them have entered the dreamscape, Liz moves from where she'd been standing near the sofa, and squeezes onto the window seat next to him. Rosa is curled up in an armchair that's positioned so she can see the two of them, and watch for when Isobel, Maria, and Mimi come back out. There's a look of almost _relief_ on Rosa's face since it became known to their group that Isobel was going to try and help Mimi DeLuca. He hasn't pressed as to the reason why, but he hopes that the answer will become clearer soon.

Alex's phone vibrates in his pocket - it's Kyle.

"I don't know if this is good complication or bad-"

"Hello to you too, Kyle."

"Caller ID eliminates the need for me to say it's me calling. But _listen_ , I talked to my mom."

Sheriff Valenti has not been a huge complication, she's accepted Max's disappearance explanation at face value so far, the story Isobel had sold her about Max hitting the road as needed in the aftermath of everything that had happened recently, and Jenna had helped sell the lie.

Kyle continues. "My mom knows. She knows about Project Shepherd, about aliens - all of it. Turns out she gave me my dad's letters because she couldn't figure out how to decode them."

"You did say she was the one was originally cleared up what Caulfield was." Out of the corner of his eye, Alex sees Rosa roll hers.

"She did. And we left it at that, because she didn't think I'd go poking about. But Dad told her things, before he died. Before the cancer made a lot of what he was saying indecipherable. And now that I'm involved, she's worried."

Alex nods along. It's good that some of his friends have parents that love them enough to not want them in harm's way. "It explains why she hasn't poked around as much as I'd expect a local sheriff to do."

"She knew that your dad had something to hold over mine, she just didn't know the specific details about Rosa. Your father, with his military connections - my mom didn't want to bring more attention to us, so she stayed quiet."

Everything Kyle was saying was making sense. Not making it known that she was aware of Jim's involvement, meant she could still operate without having to deal with Jesse Manes the same way, it meant possibly not giving his father a reason to blackmail her into submission.

"What about the official police reports Jenna found? From Noah's victims? Does she think-"

"Any time there had been a death with a handprint on the body, the Air Force - or well, more specifically your father - would swoop in and say it was a military matter. They'd get the documents needed to have the body moved, and return with the official autopsy report and a death certificate signed off by Jane Holden."

"Does she know how the military would find out?"

"No. But she's not ruling out a mole either."

Alex shook his head. "Or their computer systems are compromised. Project Shepherd has files on all of Noah's victims, it's been on my list of things to look into further."

"Wait, isn't today-"

"Yeah, I'm at Maria's." Alex interrupts, suddenly wondering where Kyle is.

"Let me know how all that goes. But I gotta run, my mom is sitting here giving me the evil eye now."

With a laugh, Alex ends the call and glances over at Isobel, Maria and Mimi. All three still have their eyes closed. And as he turns his attention back to Liz and Rosa, it doesn't escape him how Rosa is looking at him, judging him. He raises an eyebrow at her, questioning.

"Why the fuck did you not get out if this fucking town when you had the chance?"

He doesn't get the chance to answer her, because in the next moment, Maria is opening her eyes and jumping up out of her seat.

"Maria?" Liz asks, crossing the room and grabbing her hands. "What happened?"

But as Alex watches, he sees that Maria's eyes haven't left her mother's, like she needs to make sure Mimi wakes up first. It takes just a moment, before Mimi and Isobel are blinking awake, coming aware of the world around them. And there's a kind of recognition in Mimi's eyes, one that's been missing for years.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"What's going on?" Liz asks again, glancing between all three women.

"There's more," comes Isobel's voice, quieter and more childlike than Alex has ever heard. "There's _more_."

He's so focused on Isobel, that Alex almost misses Rosa cursing in Spanish under her breath from her seat nearby.

" _Rosa_?" Mimi asks, pushing up off the couch and crossing the room.

"Hi Mimi." Alex watches as Rosa pushes up out of the chair and throws her arms around Maria's mother, almost clinging to her. 

"What happened in there?" Liz tries again, sounding more desperate by the minute. "What is Isobel talking about, there's more? More what? _Aliens_?"

"Yes," Mimi replies, holding her hand out for Liz. Alex watches as Liz hesitates for a second, staring back at Mimi before taking her hand, and moving to wrap her arms around both Mimi and Rosa, pulling them close.

As the three separate, Mimi finally makes eye contact with him, the smile never leaving her face.

"The whole gang's here."

"We were worried."

"I know, and I'm sorry we couldn't tell you more. But it all got out of hand so quickly and we didn't know how else to keep you safe."

Alex frowns at Mimi’s words. "Keep us safe?"

She nods. "The less you knew, the better. Especially back then. So we left you clues, for when you were ready."

"I don't understand," Maria interrupts, finally finding her voice. 

Mimi smiles, letting go of Rosa and Liz, and making her way back over to Maria, sitting down on the couch. Alex watches as Maria goes with her mom, can see the desperation to understand written on her face.

Clues. Alex thinks about what exactly could be clues. The piece of the alien console drywalled into the construction of the bunker beneath the cabin certainly had been one.

"The cabin?" Alex asks, to make sure he's on the right track. "And the glass?"

Mimi nods.

"Jim said he found a way to tell Kyle to seek you out. He never specified what it was, but-"

"He did. Kyle knows." Alex thinks of that day, all those months ago of Kyle almost smashing a window with some firewood, trying to break into the cabin. The beginnings of sending the two of them off on repairing a damaged friendship, and discovering families _legacies_ that neither of them asked for or wanted any part of.

Liz is staring at Rosa, like the pieces are clicking into place for her. "The mixtape?"

Even as Rosa nods in her sister's direction, it still leaves Maria, who is clearly having the most trouble processing. Her fingers are twisted around the chain of her necklace, the heirloom Mimi had given her-

"A necklace with a flower that neutralizes the alien's abilities to get inside someone's mind," Alex says, the realization dawning on him. But there's something not adding up quite right yet. "Why the dementia?"

"Because there's _more of us_ ," Isobel finally speaks up, tears in her eyes, and looking more human than Alex has ever seen in all the time he's known her. "She was protecting them."

Ever since Caulfield, Alex has assumed there had to be more aliens out there somewhere. There had been only about twenty people in cells at Caulfield, and the data he'd extracted from his father's files as well as the hard drives they'd recovered had only accounted for some fifty people. It seemed unlikely then that Max, Michael, and Isobel had been the only ones to evade capture from the government. But there hadn't been any way to track them down, no way to find them if they did exist.

"Rosa," Liz says, speaking up again after a moment. "Is that what the bus ticket was for?"

\----

**PART TWENTY**

**(Michael's POV)**

He's just finishing up tightening the heat shield on a customer’s Mazda, when another car pulls into the junkyard. Glancing up in the direction of the entrance, he sees Isobel's sleek, silver Infiniti parking off to the side. He hasn't heard from anyone in a day, so he's assuming whatever went on with Mimi DeLuca went off without a hitch. He hasn't heard much from Max since they took him out of the pod, and Michael's assumed it's because she got some apologizing to do to Liz. Getting lost in his work at the junkyard again has been a good focus, it lets him not think about Alex.

Some days he's just that good at lying to himself.

"Michael, I need to talk to you."

He stands up and meets Isobel's gaze.

"About what?"

"Mimi DeLuca."

He leads her over to the firepit in front of the Airstream, and falls into his usual chair, reaching into the cooler next to it for a beer. He holds one out to her as an offer, and ignores the roll of her eyes that she answers with. As he pops the lid off, he watches her lean forward, hands braced on the back of the chair in front of her.

"Michael, there are more of us. An entire community just-"

He glares at her. "Aliens. From the crash?"

"I don't know. Maybe?"

"You found this out from Mimi DeLuca?"

"Yes, but that doesn't matter Michael. What this means is that we may not have lost our chance to get answers." Michael appreciates her not mentioning Caulfield by name. "There are others out there."

"Where?"

"Outside Los Alamos."

Michael laughs, because there's a goddamn _nuclear weapon research facility_ in Los Alamos. But maybe if you're looking to hide from a government hellbent on locking you up and studying you, living right under their noses might be the safest bet. It's all so incredibly fucked up though, how this planet and it's inhabitants seems to exist solely to fuck with him. He has spent his entire life hoping his family was out there somewhere, when really his mother was a prisoner a couple hours north. And now, when he's really lost all hope of finding any answers about who they are and where there from, it's discovered there's some sort of alien commune a couple hours away.

"So what, we just show up? _Hi, I'm an alien like you!_ "

It's not until the words leave his mouth that he realizes that's exactly what they could do. The ones held hostage in Caulfield had been able to sense him, and Michael had been able to sense them in return, like there was something about then that allowed for an ability to recognize their own kind without ever saying a word.

Isobel rolls her eyes again, moving to sit down in the chair she's been holding onto.

"Jim Valenti was sending Rosa there. Before she - before she died."

"Why? She's human."

"To get help about me. They figured out there was something wrong, and since none of the-" she cuts herself off, and Michael wonders what she was going to say. "The research and understanding they had was limited, and the community would have been able to provide answers."

"Noah really did fuck up everything, didn't he." Michael reaches down into the cooler again, pulling a beer out, and holding it out for Isobel. 

This time, she takes it.

"She still hates us, for the cover-up, and I can't say I blame her. We made her into a murderer."

"We were kids, Isobel. We did the best we could."

Michael hates thinking about that day. Hates thinking about how it'd started with lunch at the Crashdown with Max, and had ended with him and Max covering up a murder. He knows it must be worse for Isobel, for so long she didn't know what happened, had believed his lie about a bar fight, and losing control of his abilities. He tries to never think too hard about how Isobel had accepted that lie he'd told. Had looked at him for ten years believing he was a murderer.

He wonders if this is more information Alex has kept from him, given to Liz instead. Alex had spent ten years _leaving_ thinking he was protecting Michael, was this more of the same? Except now he's been holding back potential answers to the questions Michael has been asking his entire life?

Maybe Michael had been right originally, trying to move on. Maybe there was too much between them to get past. Maybe Max had had the right idea - stop looking to the past, and look forward.

But he’d tried that. And it’d gone the same way everything else had - exploding spectacularly in his face.


	11. Parts 21 & 22

**PART TWENTY-ONE**

**(Michael's POV)**

He'd gotten the directions to Alex’s cabin from Maria, and headed out of town. It didn't sit particularly well with Michael that Alex had been living alone, this isolated from everyone and everything. He parks the truck in front of the cabin, pulls down the tailgate, and sits to wait. It's the middle of the afternoon, he's not entirely sure of when Alex will be home, but he figures with their history, maybe it's the least he can do. 

He keeps his gaze on the drive leading up to the cabin, and watches the horizon until finally, he spots Alex’s SUV in the distance. His conversation with Isobel from earlier is playing back nonstop in his head, the revelation that there are in fact, more aliens living nearby weighing heavily on his mind. Ones that aren’t being held captive in a government facility, ones that have been living freely on their own. He hates that there have been others, their own kind, so close, and yet they never knew.

And worse, did the aliens living there know about them?

His mind still feels like it’s a mess, and though it's always felt that way to some degree, except now there are memories from the time when he couldn't remember Alex, mixed in with how he knows better. Michael tries to not think of how in the days since, the headaches haven't returned, but also that Alex hasn't bothered to seek him out first. It's felt like both a return to normal, despite how much he hadn’t wanted to return to that normal of them not being around each other. He’s wanted Alex to live up to what he said in the mindscape.

"Guerin? What are you doing here?" Alex asks, slamming the door closed, and walking toward him.

Michael meets his gaze, eyebrows raised. “Did you know there were more of us?"

He doesn’t have time to beat around the bush, he’s tired. He has a good idea of the information that Alex has access to these days, has seen the information that he passed on to Liz, the kind of stuff that helped her bring Max back.

Alex takes a deep breath, and Michael waits.

“No. It’s not something Project Shepherd was aware of. I found out when Isobel helped Mimi.” Michael moves to say something, but Alex holds up a hand, silencing him. “What Mimi DeLuca knew was separate from Project Shepherd. My dad suspected, but he was never able to locate them, and given Mimi's memory issues, trying to get the location from her wasn't something my father wanted to waste time on."

Michael shakes his head. “I want to believe you, Alex. I do.”

“I know. And I’m trying to give you a reason to.” He watches Alex glances back toward the cabin, as if deciding something. “Can I show you something?”

Michael didn't really come here to be shown more secrets that Alex has been hiding. But he honestly doesn't know what else could have Alex on edge like this. Since getting his memories back, neither of them have sought the other out, and in a way it's felt like avoidance for perhaps the first time in their long complicated history. Though Michael recognizes that his running out of Isobel's house probably gave a certain impression that he didn't want to talk about what had happened, there is still a part of Michael that wishes Alex had thrown caution to the wind and showed up at the junkyard again, hoping to talk.

Inside, Alex drops his backpack near the door, and holds it open as Michael watches an aging beagle head outside from where they had been perched on the sofa.

"You got a dog?"

Alex nods, smiling, and for a moment Michael is jealous of a dog. "Her name is Buffy."

"How long you had her?"

"A couple weeks. My therapist recommended the idea a couple months ago, but then Mimi had suggested-" Michael watches him cut himself off, like he doesn't want to share some detail of his life. "It's good to have some company."

Alex moves to stand next to an old wooden coffee table in the middle of the room, nodding down at it.

“Can you help me move this?”

Michael stares at him for a moment, but leans over, grabbing the edges, and shuffling with Alex as they pull the table out of the way, revealing underneath two handles to a door.

“What the hell is this?” Michael asks, unable to stop himself.

“Kyle and I found it months ago. Jim used it to help Rosa get clean, but I found something else down there.”

Michael shakes his head, turning to head down the ladder. He may be _angry_ at Alex, but he’d still rather go down first. And of course, _of course_ he'd found it with Kyle, and that the two of them had been working together for months. Michael knows there's more to their budding friendship, that Alex is more willing to look past the hell Kyle put him through when they were kids.

But it doesn't mean _Michael_ has to forgive him that easily.

The ladder itself is sturdy, and at the bottom, Michael fumbles around blindly for a moment before feeling the light switch. Turning back toward the ladder, he watches as Alex makes his way down, taking a bit of extra care on the last step as he puts his right foot on the ground.

The bunker looks like a teenage girl’s bedroom, which if Alex hadn’t explained the _why_ , Michael would find extremely creepy.

Out of the corner of his eye, Michael sees a hole in the wall, where the drywall has been broken through and not repaired. The rest of the room is spotless, the bed is made, the books are neatly arranged on the desk. You’d think someone was actually living here if not for the cobwebs that stretched across every surface.

Alex heads straight over to the hole in the wall, not even hesitating as he reaches in and pulls out a piece of the console. In his mind, Michael can see exactly where the piece fits, one of the stragglers that he’s been searching for.

“I should have given this to you a long time ago.”

Michael can’t move, he can barely think, as he watches Alex cross back over toward him, holding out the piece of glass. Unfreezing from his spot, Michael takes it, holding it in his hands, and reveling in how it’s been here all along, almost right under his nose.

That _Alex_ had it.

“How long?”

“After the drive-in.”

Michael quickly does the math in his head, but the realization only makes him angrier. “That was _months ago_ , Alex. Even before I showed you what was in my bunker!”

“I was scared!” Alex yells back at him, shoulders squared like he's on the defense, and he hates it, Michael hates that they’re here, raising their voices at each other like they’ve done every time things between them get too hard. Like they’re doomed to just keep hurting each other. It makes it feel like at any moment Alex is going to try and remove himself from the situation, walk away again.

“Scared of what?”

Michael doesn’t believe him. What does Alex have to be scared of? He’s been in wars, he’s lost a limb, he’s apparently dealt with his father’s meddling. What’s left to be scared of? Michael has been right here in Roswell, waiting for him, the entire time. It was Alex who walked away. It was Alex who always left. It was Alex who decided Michael wasn’t enough for him.

“You.” When Michael doesn’t say anything, because he’s still too angry at the implication that this is somehow his fault, Alex continues. “How I feel about you scares the hell out of me.”

He scoffs at Alex’s words. “How do you feel about me? Because from where I’m standing, it’s hard to know when you keep showing up and then leaving. But especially when you throw things like _the world ends with a whimper_ in my face and then telling me I'm your family."

It feels crueler than he means it to be, but this is a frustrating conversation to have. Ten years, Michael has been in Roswell, he’s always been here, and Alex has come and gone each time, never staying long enough to show Michael he’s reason enough, worthy enough, to stay. And even after, when he’d come back after losing his leg, when Michael had thought they might be able to be something, Alex had put a stop to that, calling him a criminal and blaming the sale of some copper wire.

It wasn't the first time they'd parted with hurtful words being hurled around, and Michael knew it wouldn't be the last. It was just what always happened with them, not that he ever understood why. But if the established pattern of them fucking, fighting, and separating was to be believed, Alex just needed space. And so space is what Michael gave him, until that day Alex had shown up at the junkyard, nervous and fidgeting and saying he was tired of not talking. He hadn't expected it, not after their interaction at the Pony before the trip to Texas, that had made Michael feel like the rug had been pulled out from underneath him - a finality to them that he'd never felt before. But he didn't know why be expected anything else, all but resigned to loving Alex and never getting to be with him, when he'd shown up. It had felt like just when he was trying to move on, Alex had reappeared, complicating things all over again, like he couldn't just let Michael be.

“I didn’t - it wasn’t throwing it in your face. I was still processing everything. Finding out about Project Shepherd, about everything my family has been involved in, and my father’s words kept echoing in my head. He’s been in there, beating me down my entire life,” Alex breathes out from where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his fingers digging into the fabric of his right thigh, and Michael wonders if his leg is bothering him. “It’s not something that’s easy to just move past.”

Michael rolls his eyes. "Alien genocide isn't enough?”

“I’m still tied to that. To that Manes family legacy. To everything that's happened, that's _hurt you_."

"Then you didn't have to walk away. You didn't have to keep _leaving_."

"I did. I had to."

Michael glares at him, at how Alex is taking responsibility for something that he can't control.

"Why then? If you want to be a self-sacrificing idiot, then why?" Michael feels like he's pressing on the bruise that is them, just a little bit harder with each question.

"To protect you. To make sure no one came after you."

Michael looks down at the shimmering piece of the console still in his hands, and tries to understand what Alex is telling him. It still doesn’t make sense, there’s still so many pieces to them that he’s having trouble fitting together. So many moments from their own history together that makes believing anything Alex says near impossible, no matter how much he wants to.

And why, if he doesn’t want anything to do with the legacy, is Alex still involved in it now?

“You still shouldn’t have kept this.”

He watches Alex nod, but doesn’t look up, doesn’t dare look in Michael’s direction, and that’s frustrating. Michael feels like he’s going to have to move, going to have to put himself in Alex’s line of sight before Alex bothers to look at him. It’s been weeks since that day Alex had shown up at the junkyard, where he’d told Michael about growing up under Jesse Manes’ thumb, and Michael had told him about his own childhood, from coming out of the pods, to his the foster homes that had reluctantly taken him in. 

“I didn’t want you to leave before-” Alex cuts himself off, and Michael can see the frustration on his face.

“Before what, Alex?”

Finally, Alex looks over at him for the first time since sitting down.

“Before we got a chance.” Michael wishes he could find his voice to say something, but Alex is continuing before he gets his lips to move. “What I said when Isobel went into your head? I meant it.”

Of course he meant it, Michael thinks, there's no lying in Isobel’s mindscape. That’s not how it works, and he’d known that before going in. But even if Alex says he’s going to do something, when, in the ten years of their relationship, has he actually done it - that’s the part Michael can’t work past. 

It still feels like Alex could leave again.

Because every time, no matter how much Michael knows down to his very core that they love each other, Alex has always left. In the end, Alex had always, despite everything else that had happened, chosen his family. Chosen to follow in those footsteps of his father, and grandfather, and all the other alien hunting murderers who came before him. And Michael knew that Alex wasn't like that, but he was always choosing them.

Would Michael ever be enough?

“And if I have to show you every day, for - for however long it takes for you to believe me, I will.”

Michael doesn’t miss the slight tremor in Alex’s voice, so attuned to all things Alex Manes. It’d be so easy right now, for them to fall back into that easy place that exists, to stop talking and just show with their hands, with their movements, with their bodies. Michael would like nothing more than to fall into that easy place that exists between them.

"Just stop - stop choosing _them_ and acting like you're doing it for me."

"I've never-"

Michael shakes his head with a huff, listening to Alex cut himself off, because they're back at square one. It always just goes round and round with them, and frankly, he's surprised Alex hasn't tried to end this conversation yet.

Alex nods, like he understands, and Michael _hopes_ that maybe this could be different. “I know I need to work up that trust, that I’m not going to leave again. But I want to. However you want to do this.”

“So what? That's it? We just try again?” Michael asks, not wanting to hope because when has _hoping_ ever done him any good. Looking down at the rag tied over his left hand, Michael thinks of months ago, of Alex showing up at the Airstream late, of the two of them crashing together, only for him to wake up alone each time. He wants, so desperately, to say yes and to know that Alex will still be there in the morning. That agreeing to this isn’t going to spiral back into the pattern of Alex leaving him alone again.

Alex nods, tears in his eyes. "Yes. If you want it too."

If Michael wants it. He _always_ wants Alex, but he wants Alex here, with him. He wants Alex to not leave after they fight, he wants him to spend the night and not leave Michael to wake up to an empty bed. He wants Alex to stop withholding information from him, and just _tell him_ anything he finds out about his family, and his people. 

He wants Alex to choose him.

So he accepts that this may be a first step. He doesn't hope quite yet, he doesn't think he can. But Alex has been in Roswell for months, and hasn't left yet. So for now, he'll take Alex's promise, and hold him to it. To see if he stays, to see if Alex really meant what he said.

“First, can we get out of this creepy bunker?”

\----

**PART TWENTY-TWO**

**(Alex's POV)**

Alex wakes slowly the next morning, taking his time opening his eyes, getting up out of bed, reluctantly going through the motions of putting his prosthesis on, before heading out into the kitchen. Coffee is the first thing he needs before he can even think of anything else, but he doesn't quite make it to the kitchen, pausing in the doorway of the living room at the sight in front of him.

On the sofa, is Michael. Sprawled out, pillow tucked under his head, blanket falling down off him. His curls are wild, spread out across the pillow, and Alex takes a moment to just admire. To stare at Michael in the quiet of the morning, and perhaps fail in ignoring the way his heartbeat picks up slightly at getting this view first thing in the morning.

They'd retreated out of the bunker last night, and instead of leaving, Michael had stayed. Alex had welcomed the company, but they'd tried to put a hard line on physical intimacy. And for one night so far, it had lasted. Michael had taken over the kitchen, promising something delicious for them to eat, while Alex finally got to relax for a moment, sliding into a seat at the kitchen table and watching Michael. It'd been impossible to ignore the feeling he'd gotten from watching Michael move around the cabin's kitchen, opening up cabinets and drawers as he searched for ingredients and utensils. Just watching him, letting Michael into his space this way had felt _right_.

Afterwards, Alex did the dishes, the least he could do after Michael cooked for them. They'd fallen into a sort of easy conversation, Michael telling him about his day at the junkyard, the cars he'd worked on and what had been wrong with them. In return, Alex had filled him in on some of the non-classified things he'd been working on at his job. Neither of them mentioned _aliens_ and _government cover ups_ for one night, and it felt good to pretend they could be normal.

After a moment, Alex continues into the kitchen, getting the coffee going, and retrieving some ingredients for breakfast out of the fridge. Overall, he's a terrible cook, but necessities he can manage, and he has yet to burn a staple like scrambled eggs and bacon.

IIt would have been so simple for them to fall back into old habits. It would have been so easy the night before for them to throw caution to the wind, and wind up in bed together. Not ending up there, even though there had been a certain amount of tension in the air between them, felt like a tiny victory. That neither of them had given in, and Alex had woken up alone, with Michael fast asleep on the couch, felt like the beginning of hoping that maybe they could do this. They could learn to exist in each other's space without immediately turning to sex to solve everything, and instead learn about each other and know each other in a way they'd never had a chance to before.

He tries to not think about all the things that have happened recently, but there's still an elephant in the room. If anything, Alex still needs to know what had been going on in Michael's head that had led to his mind removing all memories of Alex. He knew, and understood, the things that he was tied to in Michael's life, and the pain some of them had caused him. But Michael didn't blame him, did he? 

It's hard not to let his mind come to that conclusion, and it's something he knows they need to discuss.

"Morning, Private," Michael drawls from the doorway, and Alex spins around to face him, thankful that for once, Michael has opted to sleep in boxers and a t-shirt. His curls are, for lack of a better term, _a mess_ , and all Alex wants to do is run his fingers through them. The sight makes him momentarily contemplate giving in to temptation, just to be able to touch Michael again, to run his fingers through that hair.

"Morning. Breakfast?"

They eat in relative silence, but it doesn't feel awkward, it feels _right_. Michael takes their empty plates afterward, depositing them in the sink, and refilling their mugs with coffee, before sitting down again.

"Ask whatever is on your mind, Alex."

He ducks his head, unaware he'd been making it obvious there was more they needed to discuss, maybe the silence hadn't been as comfortable as he'd thought. But it also feels good that Michael feels relaxed enough to ask, though Alex wonders if that has more to do with location, and that Michael can remove himself from the situation this time.

"Why me?" Michael looks at him, questioning, and Alex continues. "Was it Caulfield? Did something happen that-"

"Stop." Michael interrupts, his fingers wrapped around his coffee mug, the black bandana sticking out in stark contrast to the white porcelain, but his eyes focused on Alex. "You said it yourself, that day in the cave. My own inability to deal with my shit properly, and something backfired."

That wasn't _exactly_ what he'd said, but clearly it had stuck out enough in Michael's mind that he'd considered it the reason for everything that had happened.

"What I do know," Michael continues, "is that I don't want it to happen again. Not - I could forget a lot of people, a lot of other things in my life and it wouldn't matter. But you?"

Is it the truth though? People's subconscious are a tricky thing, and it still meant that somewhere, Michael blamed Alex for everything that had happened to him. Those kind of feelings didn't just appear out.of nowhere 

"You're tied to so much of it," Michael goes on, but this time looking straight at Alex. "So many moments in my life that are painful to think about. It doesn't mean it's you, but-"

Alex nods, maybe getting it a little better. "Remove the common denominator."

"Yeah."

If anything, it only strengthens Alex's resolve to continue supporting Michael, and to show him that he's nothing like the people he shares a name with. It was a trust in him that didn't exist, not as much as Alex would like, but it didn't feel _hopeless_. For years, he'd unknowingly fed into Michael's fears of not being enough for anyone, something that had started the moment Max and Isobel had been adopted, and Michael instead had been tossed into the system all but forgotten.

It wasn't the things he'd done to show Michael.he cared, starting with the shed, it was all those other moments he was attached to as a result.

There's one more thing he wants to ask, one more thing they need to talk about, something they've never been able to, outside of Alex's confession that night in the Airstream. In a decade worth of moments together, Alex has never asked about Michael's hand, and Michael has never talked about it. And now, it's a different sort of weight between them, Max having finally healed it at some point that night after Michael had left the Airstream.

He doesn't know the right words to ask, instead sits on the silence of the kitchen and takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes focused on the black bandana.

But Michael is too good, has always been too in tune with him, for all their issues, for all the things they _don't_ talk about, Michael is so good at recognizing him. 

"It's not - I didn't cover it because of you."

Alex nods, not sure how to reply to the answer to a question he hasn't verbalized.

"Max got it in his head, that I was holding myself back. And maybe I was. As a reminder for myself."

"A reminder of what?" It doesn't make sense, Alex was the reason Michael had even been on the shed that day, Alex had been the reason Michael had even been in the way of his father's warpath. And for ten years, up until that moment he’d finally learned the truth about Rosa’s death, Alex had believed that he’d been the sole reason for Michael staying in Roswell - class salutatorian becoming the town drunk? It never sat well with Alex, knowing he’d caused that.

Michael takes a deep breath, and Alex watches him look down at the appendage. 

"That it was pointless to hope for anything.”

His words hit Alex square in the chest, and he tries to take that confession with his earlier words about Michael never actually blaming him for the injury, as well as Kyle’s reminder about not taking on the responsibility of the things his family had done, that they were not always his burden to bear.

Pushing back from the table, Alex takes his mug, and walks over to the sink, needing to do something except look at Michael. He stares out the window waiting for the water to warm up, and hears the chair Michael is sitting in push back, the wood of the legs scratching against the linoleum of the floor. 

“Alex, I -”

Suddenly Michael is standing next to him, hip leaning against the counter, and Alex tries, hard as he can to ignore him - a near impossible task, of course. Especially when he watches as Michael reaches out and turns the water off, forcing Alex to turn and acknowledge him.

“I didn’t want to stop hoping for us. All those years, even when you left you always came back.”

Alex shakes his head, because there are questions just running on repeat in his head, and Alex wishes he could stop thinking about all the things that have happened, and the things they could have done differently.

“Why Maria though?”

He watches as Michael dips his head, his curls shaking with the movement, like this isn’t something he wants to talk about right now, but they haven’t discussed it at all, and Alex needs to know, to understand that decision.

“Because I thought it would be easier. I thought I could have something with her that wasn’t wrapped in all this history, but she’s-” Michael cuts himself off, picking his head up and looking back at Alex. “She knew it wasn’t what I needed before I did.”

“Then what do you need, Guerin? Have you figured it out yet?”

He lets Michael crowd him against the counter, lets Michael place his hands on his hips, pushing him back against the cabinetry. Michael is staring at him, watching him in that way he’s always done, so full of love that it makes something want to burst inside Alex. There’s a part of him that feels like he still doesn’t deserve it, like they shouldn’t be here, doing this, standing this close. But he wants - he wants so bad to just rid of the space between them, to capture Michael’s lips in his own, and feel the burn of his stubble on his face, to run his fingers through Michael’s curls as they press their bodies together like nothing else in the world matters.

He wants, he wants, _he wants_.

“Just you, Alex. Since we were seventeen years old, sitting in that shed. It’s always just been you.”

Later, he’ll argue with himself that it was a mistake, but Alex doesn’t care in that moment as he surges forward, capturing Michael’s mouth with his own.


	12. Parts 23 & 24

**PART TWENTY-THREE**

**(Alex's POV)**

Alex sits at one of the booths in the back, a beer bottle on the table in front of him. The last thing he wants to be doing today is having a meeting with Hunter, but his brother had insisted, and Alex agreed to not make him drive all the way out to the cabin this time. Michael is at the pool tables, well within Alex's sight, and he can't deny how much he likes being able to watch Michael hustle the tourists who accidentally wind up in the locals bar instead of at Saturn's Ring. Every once in a while Michael will look over in his direction, that lopsided grin splashed across his face, and Alex almost always tries, and fails, to not smile back at him.

The idea of them taking it slow for once, of simply being on the same page, is a challenge. Falling into bed with Michael has always been as easy as breathing, but they can't have an entire relationship built on good sex, and at the least they both realize that. It gets less weird by the day to wake up, more often than not, to Michael sprawled out on the couch. Alex had been glad he replaced the rickety old seat with a pull out when he'd started making renovations and improvements throughout the cabin, especially now that it was being put to good use. He tries not to think about how good it will feel to eventually give in, and to be able to wake up in bed next to Michael.

"So when's the wedding?" Hunter muses, sliding in across from him.

"Fuck off," Alex bites back.

"Some higher up caught wind of dad's attempt on Kyle Valenti, so he's being court martialed. Harlan is _thrilled_ at the chance to take over the operation and not have to deal with dad anymore. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

While it's not ideal that Alex still has to now watch out for Harlan, removing his father means less looking over his shoulder. Harlan is much more by-the-book, and Alex knows, a little easier to predict in his movements. It's Jesse Manes, with his unpredictability that have been near impossible to watch and establish a pattern outside of "bigotry."

There is still at least one other facility like Caulfield being operated that Alex still has to figure out how to handle. He doesn't want to just show up like they did at Caulfield, he needs to be smarter this time, and he doesn't know if that will include bringing Michael along again. It’s a conversation they still have to have, as well as Alex showing Michael the remainder of the information they’d gathered from Caulfield in the hard drives. He knows, on some level, he needs to do it soon, lest Michael somehow find out before he gets a chance, and ruin the promise Alex has made.

"You know, for some reason, once the military became aware of dad operating outside the jurisdiction allowed, now Harlan is trying to distance himself."

Alex shrugs his shoulders, taking a sip of his beer. "Harlan is smarter than dad. He always has been."

"You don't seem so worried."

It's not that he's not worried, especially since Hunter had made it known during his last visit that Michael, in addition to the Evans twins, are suspected of being aliens from the 1947 crash. But he also remembers what Hunter had said about the government was still more than likely to leave them alone if they suspected there was any truth to Jesse Manes reports. Coming after the children of a prominent, upper middle-class _white_ family? It would not be a good look.

And Alex doesn't need to tell Hunter that he's already taken care of the hit their father essentially put out on Michael, including in his report that his father's long-standing bigotry and homophobia fueled the accusations against Michael, and were a personal vendetta against Alex, nothing more. It seemed to have satisfied the right people, so for the meantime, Alex is going to take it as a win.

"Harlan isn't going to poke around somewhere unless he's got reason to. He and I may hate each other, but even he knows when to back off."

Hunter shakes his head. "Remind me to never piss you off."

Alex looks up at him. "Are you still reporting to him?"

"For the time being."

"Then yeah, I still hate you too."

Hunter laughs, flagging a waitress over finally to get himself a drink.

"I'm taking Maria and Mimi up to Los Alamos tomorrow," Hunter supplies as the waitress walks away.

"Just bring them back in one piece."

It's not that Alex exactly trusts Hunter, but Mimi had taken one look at his brother and pulled him into a hug, and that was how he knew that at the very least, Hunter was telling the truth. They're hoping to just remove the location from her memories, and avoid the dementia that had set in last time, but they won't truly know for weeks or even months if it worked correctly.

The idea of her mom returning to normal, and the possibility of losing her again is something Alex and Maria have discussed, and he's told her, assured her, that he would do everything in his power to keep Mimi safe. The steps he'd taken against his father were just the beginning, because if he'd learned anything over the past several months, it was that the government conspiracy and cover-up relating to the 1947 UFO crash went deep - deeper than one person could possibly handle on their own, unfortunately.

It's Maria that appears with Hunter's beer, dropping it on the table in front of him and sliding into the booth next to Alex.

"Road trip tomorrow."

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Alex can't help but ask, even though they've already discussed it.

"I really don't want to lose her again. But is it really my choice?" There's a sadness to her voice that Alex hates, that this could turn out how it did before, and Maria has to watch Mimi's deteriorate again. "And I asked Jenna to come with us. Just in case."

Hunter rolls his eyes. "Does no one trust me?"

He knows that Maria and Jenna are taking it slow, even slower than he and Michael, apparently. He's pulled some strings and gotten Jenna's sister transferred, so that Jenna can stay in Roswell. It's good having allies, and even better seeing Maria still getting a chance to be happy with someone. And he likes Jenna, not just for all the help back when they were first trying to figure out the _alien_ serial killer mystery, but in her ability to keep a cool head in the aftermath, as well as how easily she'd agreed to help out in covering for Max's disappearance until Liz could find a way to bring him back.

"You're sure you don't want to come along?" Maria asks him bumping his shoulder playfully, ignoring Hunter.

Alex glances up toward the direction of the pool tables, where Michael is lining up a shot. Even from where Alex is, he can see Michael's curls falling down over his eyes - he'll tease him later about needing a haircut.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

\----

**PART TWENTY-FOUR**

**(Michael's POV)**

Picking up his lunch order from the Crashdown, Michael doesn't expect to see Max sitting in a booth off to the side. They haven't seen a lot of each other in the past few days, not since the aftermath of pulling Max out of the pod and Liz bringing him back to life. Michael is still amazed, even now, at what Liz Ortecho is able to accomplish when she sets her mind to it.

Knowing Max isn't going to let him slip out undetected, Michael rolls his eyes and slides into the booth across from him. In front of Max is a burger, fries, and a Little Green Man shake - his usual order.

"You're pathetic and obvious," Michael says by way of a greeting. Once upon a time, they used to hang out at the Crashdown on a regular basis, laugh about school and girls and whatever else was going on in their lives. Over the last decade, there had been times Michael has missed that closeness, that friendship and camaraderie he'd had once with Max.

"I'm having lunch, Michael."

Michael just grins by way of reply, stealing a fry from Max's plate, leaning back in the booth, and glancing outside.

It'd been a good morning, busy, but good. Usually, Michael would wait for a lull on busy days before taking a break and making himself something to eat for lunch. But the unfortunate side effect of not having been sleeping in the Airstream or spending much time outside of work at the junkyard, was that it was dangerously low on supplies. But he’s not sure if he _wants_ to restock the Airstream these days, and it’s starting to feel like a conversation he needs to have with Alex.

Staying at Alex's while they started to navigate their new beginning was interesting, to say the least. Michael didn't mind making do on the couch, it even folded out into a proper bed when he wanted to actually stretch out, and was still more comfortable than the bed in the Airstream. Most days though, Michael would wake up, remember where he was, and find himself still wishing he could wake up next to Alex instead. He finds that he wants to know what it's like to fall asleep next to Alex night after night, he wants to know what it's like to wake up next to him, to watch Alex come alive in those first moments of the morning.

"I know we haven’t talked about it," Max nods towards Michael's left hand. “But I am sorry for pushing that on you. I shouldn’t have ignored what you wanted.”

He's been trying to learn to exist without the black rag covering it. It's been easier since he and Alex had it out about their relationship, since they decided to take it slow. Communication is something they're still struggling with, though sometimes Michael gets the feeling Alex understands more of what he's saying than Michael does about the things Alex says. Alex had sat down next to him on the couch one afternoon, pulling Michael's hand into his lap, and unwrapping the rag so he could look at it himself. Michael had almost forgotten how to breathe that day, as he watched Alex trace along the bones, across the back of his hand where the scarring had always been the worst - the place the hammer had come down and actually hit all those years ago. Alex's careful movements reminding Michael of his own over the stump of Alex's leg, reminders of what the world had taken from them.

"No, we haven’t," Michael replies, easily. "And it’s done. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Max nods, like he knows better than to push. Michael wonders if it’s all the yelling Liz is sure to have done at him for sacrificing himself in the first place, and resurrecting Rosa without talking to anyone, least of all her, first.

“How's settling back in at work?" Michael asks instead.

Max laughs. "First thing I heard was that you haven't graced the drunk tank in weeks!"

"I knew they all missed me."

"I am sorry," Max apologizes, turning their conversation once again to that night. "For the things I said in the cave that night."

Michael shakes his head, he doesn't need to rehash this back out with Max. Especially not here in the middle of the Crashdown.

"You said things I probably needed to hear."

He watches Max's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. They haven't really gotten a chance to talk about what's happened to Michael in the time Max was dead and in stasis in the pod. 

"That's a first."

Michael rolls his eyes.

"Liz said you and Alex-"

"We're good. We're, uh, we're working on it." He's never been able to really talk about his relationship with Alex before, there's some weirdness to the idea still that Max knows and has known. He forgave Max long ago for that day he'd thrown Alex back in his face, though now he realizes he probably deserved it for refusing to see that Liz was just as important to Max as Alex is to him. But even so, it doesn't mean he needs to discuss his relationship. "Has Liz forgiven you yet?"

"I think-"

"No, she has not," comes the reply as Liz joins them, dropping Michael's takeout bag on the table and sliding his milkshake-to-go toward him. 

The kicked puppy look on Max's face has Michael sliding back out of the booth, and watching as Liz takes his seat. Just as he's about to grab the takeout bag, his phone vibrates from inside his pocket. Taking it out and glancing at the screen reveals a text message from Alex.

 **From Alex:** _Leaving work early today. Picking up dinner on the way. Need to ask you something._

"Smiley wider, Mikey."

Michael doesn't even realize he _is_ smiling, though he's starting to suppose it's a good thing that it's happening more often now in regards to Alex. Even with a boring and seemingly _domestic_ text message about dinner plans. Michael has always been stuck wondering if he'll ever be enough for anyone, if anyone would ever choose him. He's let Alex in on that fear, little by little and piece by piece these days, and in return Alex has shown him, keeping that promise he made to do better by Michael, to show he wasn't going anywhere.

"I still can't believe I was the only one who knew about them." Max's voice pulls Michael out of his thoughts, and he looks up from his phone screen.

Liz lets her head drop forward. "I was dating Kyle, don't I get a pass on bad judgements?"

They've already had a good laugh about Michael's little memory issues occuring at the convenient time when Max wasn't around to fill in all the blanks. Everyone else was operating on some very limited knowledge when it came to his relationship with Alex, especially in comparison to the open book that was Max and Liz's feelings for each other. And Michael liked it that way. He didn't need to make sure everyone always knew about him and Alex. It was just one of the ways he and Max were different.

"And now you're dating Max. For someone with three degrees, you have some really terrible taste in men," Michael teased, sliding his phone back into his pocket, and grabbing his food off the table, heading toward the door. He could hear Liz sputtering at his words, and Max laughing, and it felt good, it felt… normal.

Michael had spent most of his life scoffing at the idea of normal. They weren't normal, they weren't even human, why should those expectations apply to them? He knows Caulfield, and meeting his mother, and everything afterwards that happened with Noah made him just want the world to _stop_ , just for a moment. It hadn't, of course, even when he'd tried to be proactive and make the decision for himself.


	13. Parts 25 & 26

**PART TWENTY FIVE**

**(Michael's POV)**

Michael isn't surprised to beat Alex home, walking into an empty cabin. He sheds his work clothes in the master bedroom, leaving them in a pile on the floor. The hot water of the shower feels good after a day under the hot sun, dirt and grease and grime clinging uncomfortably to his skin. Just as he's rinsing the shampoo from his curls, he faintly hears the front door open and slam shut. 

He loves showering in Alex's bathroom, of being surrounded by Alex's scent, and things that are just so intrinsically _Alex_. Even moreso, Michael likes the idea of leaving his own scent behind for Alex when he comes in later to wash away the day. It's a little primal, but Michael has too many memories of Alex burying his nose into his skin, inhaling and relaxing at whatever he'd found there. 

Back in the bedroom, with a towel tied around his waist, Michael digs through the dresser with his clothes, looking for something to wear. Alex had pointed to it one day, telling him he needed somewhere for his things, even if they weren't yet at the part where they shared a bed. And ever so slowly, Michael had taken to moving his meager wardrobe to the cabin.

"Guerin?"

He spins around at the sound of Alex's voice, choked off and strained, a look of raw _need_ in his eyes. They haven't discussed moving forward yet, when anything other than kissing should happen, even though Michael much prefers if things just happened. They're both good at reading the other for cues, to not push further than the.other wants. Even if they need to work on their verbal communication, this is the part they've always been good at.

Michael doesn't move as Alex crosses the room toward him, stopping just inches away, his gaze moving to catalog his freshly-showered look. He watches as Alex takes a deep breath, as if inhaling the smells around him and committing it to memory.

"Alex?"

"Did I ever tell you, you smell like earth? A bit like petrichor, I think."

Out of the corner of his eye, Michael can see Alex's hand twitch and make a fist, like he's holding himself back. He doesn't know where this will put them, but Michael doesn't want Alex to feel like he can't when they're both standing here wanting.

He doesn't quite understand why Alex is bringing up how he smells, maybe it's something related to when he showers, he's not sure. They've never spent enough time together, never really spent nights sleeping together either, that the mention of how he _smells_ sounds weird. But he also knows how many times Alex has pressed his nose to the junction where his neck and shoulder meet, pressing lips to the skin there.

"Maria said once, you smelled like a river. But I think - I think it's more than that."

Michael stands still, feeling the water drip from the ends of his curls, landing on the skin of his neck and shoulders, watching as Alex's eyes dart around, unable to tear his gaze away from it. He doesn't move as Alex unclenches his fists, his hands reaching forward, fingers brushing the skin of his hips, thumbs tracing over his adonis belt. Michael isn't even sure if he's breathing, not wanting to be distracted in any way at the feeling of Alex's fingers on his bare skin for the first time in months.

_"Alex."_

He knows it comes out more like a whine, more a desperate plea than anything. Michael doesn't care, because it's Alex, and Alex's hands on him, and he has been craving this for months. But it's as if his speaking out loud breaks the spell, and Alex is taking a step back, dropping his hands back to his sides, closing his eyes and turning around so he's not facing Michael any more, making his way towards the door.

"I've got dinner from that restaurant you like, since I was coming back from the base. When you’re uh, when you’re ready.”

Michael watches Alex leave the room, pulling the door closed behind him, and feels slightly paralyzed at what just happened. There have definitely been moments, since that day Alex gave him the missing console piece, where they’ve both made aborted motions toward the other, only to belatedly realize it probably wasn’t the best idea in the moment. But it doesn’t stop Michael from wanting to grab Alex and kiss him, to pull him close and take him apart inch by inch. And he knows, he can see it in how Alex moves, in the way he _doesn’t_ , that Alex is trying to not rush them, rush this new thing between them.

All it does is make Michael want to throw caution to the wind.

Alex is sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away at something on his phone when Michael walks in. The dinner Alex had picked up is laid out on the table, still in their styrofoam containers, so Michael slides into the seat across from him, and pops open his meal - a chili cheese burger.

As he digs in, Michael watches Alex continue typing away at whatever is keeping him occupied on his phone, his expression remaining blank like it’s something to do with work. It feels like Alex is avoiding looking at him, like he didn’t like being taken off guard by Michael in the bedroom earlier, and Michael doesn’t know quite how to breach the silence, so he decides not to, eating quietly instead.

It’s not until Alex has worked his way through half of his own burger, that he finally looks up at Michael, and keeps his focus, having flipped his phone over on the table to remove the distraction.

“Kyle and I have been in communication with that community up near Los Alamos,” Alex starts, and Michael realizes his shoulders are squared like he’s preparing for a less than great reaction to what he’s about to say. “If you want, when you’re ready, they’re there for you to visit.”

There’d been some hush hush secrecy when Alex’s older brother Hunter had traveled with Maria and her mother up to Los Alamos, the location of the community preferring to be kept secret to prevent against the government ever finding out of its existence. It was a precaution that Michael couldn’t blame them for, ending up as a lab experiment was one of his worst nightmares since coming out of the pod twenty years ago. But now, the idea of them allowing him to visit, to possibly get answers regarding where they’re from, and why they left - all the things Noah had refused to answer, and Michael hadn't gotten the opportunity to ask, it’s a lot for Michael to process when he’s spent so long learning to accept that he may never get them.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” Alex continues, posture unchanged, and Michael _hates_ _it_. 

He pushes back from the table, dinner forgotten, and without a word makes a beeline into the bedroom, going straight for the dresser where he keeps his clothes. Buried beneath the tshirts in the top drawer, he pulls out an unmarked envelope, not needing to look at it because he already knows exactly what is inside. 

“What’s going on-”

“Here,” he says, holding out the envelope to Alex, who had decided to follow him in, and is now standing in the doorway. Michael notices that his hair is a mess, disheveled enough like he’d just run his fingers through it a couple times in frustration. He watches as Alex stares at him for a moment before taking the envelope, and flipping it open, sliding the contents out. He can’t see Alex’s reaction, not right away, and it takes a moment from Alex looking at the photograph before he’s glancing back up, meeting Michael’s gaze.

At the least, the tension is gone from Alex’s shoulders now, replaced by confusion in his eyes.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Flip it over.”

He watches as Alex complies, taking in the words written on the back, before looking back up at him. And Michael _loves him_ , impossibly so sometimes. There had been nights over the past ten years, when he’d laid on top of his sleeping bag in the back of the truck, or later in the bed in the Airstream, when he’d let his mind wander, thinking about this connection with Alex, this unexplainable _cosmic_ pull between them. Maybe the concept of soulmates was a fantasy invented by humanity to give their life more meaning, but it was his feelings for Alex that made him believe there might be some truth to it.

“I don’t-”

Michael rolls his eyes, taking the photo and the envelope and dropping them on the bed behind him, before turning back to face Alex.

“It doesn’t matter if those people have the same DNA as me, it doesn’t matter if they can answer every question I’ve had since I was seven years old. They’re just people.”

Alex scoffs. “Yeah, _your people_.”

He hates how adamant Alex is about this, but he needs him to understand, even though he knows Alex is thinking of Caulfield, of standing in that holding area and how he’d yelled at him that the people in those cells were his family. 

“Yes, my people, but not my family.” Looking straight at Alex, Michael reaches up and places his hand on Alex’s chest, right over his heart. It takes Alex a moment before he’s reaching up, and placing his hand over Michael’s, holding onto it. "Isn't that what you told me?"

“I thought-”

Michael shakes his head, his left hand hooking into one of the belt loops of Alex’s pants, pulling him forward just a little. They both do better this way, they both communicate better with their hands, and with their bodies. But Michael needs Alex to also understand the importance of what he’s saying, he doesn’t want this to be another misunderstood thing between them.

“Maybe at some point in the future, in a couple days, or weeks, I’ll want to meet them, and find out everything.”

Alex stares at him, his forehead crinkled in confusion. “But not now.”

Michael pulls back just enough to stare at Alex, to make sure he understands what he’s saying, because that’s what they’ve been working toward, that’s what all of this careful and caution in their movements has been about. And standing here now, with Alex so close to him, it feels like he just wants to stop _thinking_ and start _doing_. 

“I read somewhere that people used Polaris to find their way home, and when I was little, when I was going to Foster’s Homestead and hoping for my family to come back for me, I’d wonder which star out there was for me. Which one would lead me back home.” Michael pauses, sliding both his hands up to cup Alex’s face, burying his fingers in the hair at the back of Alex’s neck. He can feel Alex’s own hands on his sides, fingers running up and down over the fabric of his shirt. “I spent so much time looking up at the sky, that I didn’t realize my way home was a person standing right in front of me the whole time.”

“ _Michael._ ”

Alex’s voice would be inaudible, if they weren’t already only standing a breath apart, and Michael takes a second to catalog the small smile before closing the rest of the space between them, and capturing Alex’s lips in his own. 

“You called me Michael,” he laughs, pulling back just a fraction, keeping their foreheads pressed together, before diving back in, feeling like he could get lost in the feeling of Alex’s lips on his. In ten years of interactions, Michael can’t think of a time when Alex has called him by his first name, always resorting to his last. He hadn’t cared, hadn’t let it bother him - or at least, had been good at lying to himself that it didn’t. “Say it again.”

Alex pulls back from him, his hands still holding on to Michael’s arms, like he doesn’t want to let go either.

_“Michael.”_

\----

**PART TWENTY SIX**

**(Alex's POV)**

Alex wakes up the next morning, his face buried in Michael’s back. He’s too comfortable, he doesn't even want to think of moving, choosing instead to close his eyes again, and pressing his lips to the skin, letting his fingers trail a pattern down Michael’s spine. In a decade of encounters, there have been less than a handful of times where they’ve been able to wake up together, something that Alex can’t help but think of now that it feels as though they’ve made a significant turn in their relationship. 

He hadn’t realized it until last night, standing in the bedroom, as Michael had once again said something that knocked the air out of lungs in that way the words Michael chose always did. Alex had declared loudly, that day in Caulfield, that Michael was his home. Had wanted Michael to know that he wasn’t going anywhere - but his words meant nothing if Michael didn’t believe them. Something had settled, deep inside him, like a puzzle piece slotting into place finally, for Michael to finally say the words, that Alex was his home as well.

Maria’s words from over the summer echo through his mind, that maybe home isn’t a physical location, maybe it isn’t some picturesque house with a white picket fence, maybe it’s just one person who makes you feel safe and loved and understood. That person who’s always in your mind, who you’re always thinking about, making you smile when others mention them, and find reason to protect them from the outside world.

There’s something else weighing on his mind though, one last thing he needs to tell Michael, and Alex knows he can’t put it off any longer. He hadn’t meant to keep it to himself for this long, but with everything else that had happened, the information about Michael’s mother had gotten pushed aside to be dealt with at a later date. He just hopes now, with their new foray into open communication, that Michael understands how much Alex had wanted to tell him, and how much he hadn’t been keeping this from Michael intentionally. 

With one last kiss to Michael’s shoulder, Alex slips out from underneath the sheets, and sets about slipping his sock on, and grabbing his prosthesis from it’s spot next to the bed. It’s just motions at this point, another addition to his daily routine that Alex has been learning to live with, and he tries to not let it slow him down. There’s a part of him that knows it’s not a weakness, but something inside him still likes to whisper that he’s not whole anymore, that his injury doesn’t make him fragile.

In the kitchen, he starts the coffee, feeling like he’s going to need it for the conversation with Michael, and knowing that Michael will also appreciate it. Breakfast, however, can wait. Alex doesn’t think he can handle food right now, even though he probably should so he can take his morning regime of prescriptions, but holding it off until Michael wakes up won’t upset anything except his own internal schedule a bit. He lets Buffy outside, even though she’s probably one of the most patient animals he’s ever come across, and lets her back in, watching as she curls back up in her spot next to the fireplace.

Two cups in hand, Alex heads back into the bedroom, placing the mugs on the bedside table, and sitting back down on the bed, arranging the pillows to lean back against the headboard. He picks up his cell phone from it’s charger on the table, and taps open his e-mail app while he sips his coffee and waits for Michael to wake up.

It doesn’t take long, Michael obviously having felt the bed shift, and he rolls into Alex’s legs, an arm reaching around, and burying his face in Alex’s thigh. Setting the phone on the table, Alex reaches down, and buries his hand in Michael’s curls, scratching lightly at the scalp, and he swears he hears Michael _moan_ at the feeling.

“Why are you awake so early?”

“It’s past eight.”

Michael buries his face in the pillows and blankets for a moment before pushing himself up enough to get a good look at Alex.

“Coffee?” Alex asks, grabbing the second mug and holding it out for him, watching as Micheal takes it, holding it up to his lips. “I need to tell you something.”

He gives Michael a moment to drink some more of his coffee, and get the chance to wake up. This isn’t a great thing to drop on him first thing in the morning, but after last night, Alex doesn’t want them to move forward without discussing this first.

“Is it related to government conspiracies? Because it’s eight in the morning, Alex, and I can think of much better things for us to be doing.”

Alex bites his lip, thinking of the _things_ Michael is referring to. He’d like nothing more than to get his hands back on Michael, and take him apart here in his bed, where they have room to stretch out. But maybe after, if Michael isn’t mad and distancing himself, maybe then they can make that their morning.

“It is, but this is something I think you need to know about.”

He watches Michael nod, and Alex takes it as his acceptance to listen.

“When I was going through the information Project Shepherd has, and everything we’d acquired from the hard drives swiped from Caulfield, I came across information about your mother.” While he hadn’t been looking at Michael as he spoke, Alex shifts his gaze now from a point on the wall across from him, toward Michael, needing to see his reaction.

Michael’s face is blank, his mug still clutched firmly in his hands. “What kind of information?”

“Later, we can go over to the bunker and I can show you-”

Michael shakes his head. “Alex. What kind of information.”

“Surveillance, experiments-”

“My worst nightmares.”

And Alex feels terrible for even bringing it up. Wishes he could find a time machine and take back saying anything so that he never has to see this look on Michael’s face ever again. He’s known, for quite some time, that one of Michael’s greatest fears was to be discovered, and to end up in a government facility as a lab experiment. So for him to have the proof, the documentation of just what exactly the government had sanctioned be done to Michael’s people makes Alex’s heart hurt for him. 

“I just didn’t want you to think I was keeping this from you.”

“How long?”

It’s a simple enough question, Alex knows. But the answer isn’t going to make anything better.

“Not until after Caulfield. And then, I set it aside to focus on trying to figure out what was wrong with you, and trying to help Maria with Mimi-” Alex cuts himself off, he doesn’t need to make excuses, doesn’t need to list off everything that’s been going on recently in order to justify his actions. “I am sorry for not saying something sooner.”

Michael nods, and Alex hopes that means he understands. Setting his coffee mug on the table, he reaches over and takes Michael’s setting it down next to his own and turning back to Michael, who’s staring at him, probably wondering what he’s doing.

“We can go to the bunker, and I can show you everything. But I need you to understand that knowing what they’ve done, knowing everything that happened in Caulfield, and what was part of Project Shepherd, I need you to understand that I am going to do everything in my power to keep you safe.” Alex reaches out, taking Michaels hands in his own, squeezing them in a pitiful attempt to emphasize his point. _“I need you safe.”_

He watches as the tears form in Michael’s eyes, and Alex hopes it’s not something he’s said. It’s something he’s hated, time and time again, the idea of hurting Michael, even unintentionally. 

“She told me, you know,” Michael replies, and Alex watches as he pulls one of his hands out from where Alex is holding them to reach up and bat away the tears in his eyes. “She told me she loved me, and she told me to run. But she also told me not to push you away.”

“Your - your mother?” 

He feels stupid even saying the words, because who else?

But Michael just smiles, leaning forward, and capturing Alex’s lips in his own, pressing Alex back against the headboard. He can feel the shift in the bed from where Michael’s placed his hands to hold himself up and he leans forward.

“Thank you,” Michael whispers against Alex’s lips in between kisses, helping to settle the knots in Alex’s stomach that he’d fucked something up. “ _Thank you_.”

There’s still so much they have to deal with, so much they will have to discuss in the future. But this here right now, it feels like their new beginning. Alex will let Michael kiss him, and in return he’ll press Michael back into the pillows, taking him apart piece by piece, inch by inch, turning Michael into a squirming mess, and relishing in every little moan that escapes Michael’s lips. Later, they’ll finally get out of bed, and Michael will cook breakfast for them, and maybe they’ll eat in the living room, curled up together on the sofa with Buffy at their feet. And sometime in the future - maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, or maybe in a couple days from now, Alex will take Michael to the Project Shepherd bunker and show him everything that has amassed over the past seventy years about the UFO crash and the ships’ occupants. 

Ten years ago, Alex saw a boy in need of a place to stay and offered up the only thing he had - four walls that staved off the chill of the cold New Mexico nights. And even though it’s taken them a long time to get here, he’s choosing to focus on the fact that they are here, finally. 

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> (Who's excited for Monday??)


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